Best DIY Grout Cleaner

Get the tutorial for this AMAZING DIY grout cleaner using natural ingredients you probably have on had.

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I don’t like to be too dramatic, but this is a miracle. Okay that’s dramatic, but I just want you to know this homemade grout cleaner works SO WELL.

Let me tell you what it did for me. We have lived in our current home for about 2.5 years. We have tile floors in our kitchen and mudroom/laundry. These are the most high traffic areas for us because the mudroom is the main entrance to the house and then we walk through the kitchen to get to the rest of the house.

And of course, its the kitchen so its just the hangout area. In the 2.5 years we have lived here I have never, intentionally cleaned the grout (which is a white grout). I have scrubbed the tile floors and used a rag to scrub the grout as I did that, but I’ve never used a grout cleaner and actually cleaned just the grout.

You guys, it was baaaaad. Like worse than I even thought. The grout in our kitchen was bothering me for a while but I didn’t know how bad it was until after I cleaned it. Like I said, its a white grout, but it was honestly looking close to black (maybe a dark brown?!)

Here is a before picture!

I’ve known all along that I wanted to make my own DIY grout cleaner to tackle this mess, but I was just waiting for the motivation to build up and spill over LOL hosting an Easter party at our house was the final push.

I thought that I would try out a few different homemade grout cleaners, and see which worked best, but after trying this one out on a small area first, I was hooked. There was no need to test out any more recipes! I had found the best home remedy for cleaning grout on the first try!

If your grout is looking less-than these days, I think you will LOVE the results after using this DIY grout cleaner. Just to warn you, it does take time and a bit of elbow grease. I did our kitchen over the course of a couple days, spending about an hour on it each day. This is a project I will likely only do a couple times a year from now on, and maybe on a maintenance basis as I see fit.

Even though it was a bigger project, it was SO well worth it. I plan to use the cleaner on our bathrooms next! Would you like to see those before and afters?!

Okay let’s get on with it and get right into what the cleaner is and how to use it.

What is the best homemade tile grout cleaner?

A combination of baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, and dish soap is the BEST homemade grout cleaner.

The before and after photos below will prove it to you. All of those ingredients work together to clean, whiten, and brighten grout.

I’ll explan in the next section how each of the ingredients used, combined with a good quality scrub brush, will turn your grout from being black/brown and grimy to bright white.

I used this grout cleaner on my kitchen floors and my mudroom floors, but I am sure it would work well in bathroom and showers also. I’m hoping to try it on our shower tile next!

DIY Grout Cleaner Supplies

Lets take a look at what you’ll be using in this DIY grout cleaner and a little more about each of the ingredients

To clean your grout you’ll need:

Small or Medium Sized Bowl

You’ll use a bowl to mix up all of your ingredients in.. I used a medium sized, glass, bowl.

Handheld Scrubber Brush or Toothbrush

I’ve seen lots of tutorials after doing mine that used a toothbrush. This seems a lot more time consuming! I used my favorite, handheld scrub brush from Grove Collaborative. Its specifically for tile and grout and has very strong bristles so it worked GREAT! It covers a much bigger area than a toothbrush, and is easy to hold and push down on. HERE is a similar option from Amazon.

Baking Soda

Baking soda is an awesome, all natural cleaner. I love using baking soda in all of my natural, DIY projects. Its non-toxic, safe, and effective.

Because of its abrasive texture, baking soda is great at removing dirt and build-up. Its not too abrasive though so it shouldn’t cause any damage to your tile or grout. Its a mild alkali which means it can cause dirt and grease to dissolve easily in water, so it can be wiped up and removed.

Hydrogen Peroxide

Hydrogen peroxide is another, awesome, all-natural cleaner. It is a disinfectant, and is often considered a natural alternative to bleach.

Because of its whitening properties, it can be helpful in whitening your grout!

Hydrogen peroxide is basically water, with an extra molecule of oxygen. This extra molecule oxidizes which is what helps hydrogen peroxide to kill germs and bleach color from porous surfaces.

Dish Soap

The final ingredient in this DIY grout cleaner is dish soap. You know that dish soap works well to clean grease and grime off pretty much anything, so its a great, extra boost in this homemade cleaner.

I used regular old dawn dish soap in my cleaner.

How to Clean Grout with Homemade Grout Cleaner

Here are the steps to cleaning your tile grout with homemade grout cleaner:

Mix together your homemade natural grout cleaner solution. Combine two parts hydrogen peroxide with one part baking soda. I started with 1 cup baking soda and 1/2 cup hydrogen peroxide. Add 2 tsp dish soap to this, and mix well. (you may need to make a few different batches of this depending on how big of an area you are doing).

Work in a small area at a time. Use your hand or a spoon to add a little bit of the cleaner to the grout, and spread along each line. A little bit goes a long way! You don’t need to get a bunch on the tile, but do try to make sure all of the grout is covered.

Let it Sit, Very Important

Let this sit for 5-10 minutes. Set a timer and go about your homemaking! This is part of what takes so long, its not necessarily labor intensive, but you have to work in small areas and let each area sit for 5-10 minutes at a time.

Don’t skip this part because, this his how the solution works.

Scrub, Scrub, Scrub

After its sat use a scrub brush to scrub down each grout line. It should only take a few scrubs down each line before you start to see a difference and you can literally see it whiten and brighten right before your eyes. Make sure to scrub all of the grout on each line between your tiles.

At this point you can let the cleaner dry a bit so its easier to sweep up, or you can just sweep it up with your broom and clean your broom later (which is no big deal!) Either way you’ll want to get as much of the cleaner swept up as possible.

In some areas I let it dry a long time until it was pretty much just baking soda, and in others I swept it while it was still wet. I just took my broom outside and banged it on the concrete to get the excess off. Here is a photo of what it looks like when you’re sweeping it up dry.

Mop & Clean it Up

Finally, you’ll finish it all off with a good mopping, or scrubbing with a rag, using a little bit of dish soap and hot water, OR a natural tile cleaner and hot water. It may take a few times with your mop, and dumping out the water and getting fresh water again before you’ve cleaned up all of the cleaner.

If you feel like you can’t get all of the extra cleaner off, get it as cleaned as possible with your mop, then throw down a big towel and walk across the floor to dry it. If you’re cleaning tile grout in a shower, it will be much easier to clean because you can spray and wash clean the tile with the shower water.

Here is what the exact before spot I showed looks like after. I tried not to do any editing on this after photo and the before photos so you can get a good comparison. There’s another photo in the next section of two spots side by side. It wasn’t great lighting and honestly the photos don’t do it justice! I wish you could see in person:)

A few notes:

I learned the hard way that a little bit goes a long way! The less of the cleaner you get on your actual tile, the better. Just make sure you get enough to cover the grout and that’s it.

Its best to work in small sections if you’re doing a tile floor, because once you get the cleaner in the grout, you don’t want to have to crawl over other cleaner to scrub and mop when its time to scrub. Does that make sense?!

Homemade Grout Cleaner Results

Here is a close-up comparison, before and after photo of this homemade grout cleaner.

To give you a timeline, each section that I did took about 30 seconds of applying the solution, and 5-10 minutes of letting it soak. Then, I scrubbed for about two minutes just on the grout lines with my grout scrub brush. After this I swept up most of the solution that I could (one minute), and followed it up with a mop and sometimes a wet rag, hot water, and a little natural tile cleaner (5 minutes). I also did the big towel trick in some areas.

I had to do that over again across the whole kitchen floor. It wasn’t hard, but occupied the kitchen for a good part of the day.

Here are some questions you may be wondering about cleaning grout the homemade, all-natural way! If this doesn’t answer your questions, you can always shoot me an email! jayden@backroadbloom.com

What is the Easiest and Fastest Way to Clean Grout?

The easiest and fastest way to clean grout (effectively) is to mix two parts baking soda with one part hydrogen peroxide, add a squirt of dish soap, spread lightly on the grout, scrub, sweep, and wipe clean.

As you follow this process, the easier and faster it will get.

Does hydrogen peroxide damage grout?

Hydrogen Peroxide does not damage grout, but it will whiten, disinfect, and clean your grout. Bleach on the other hand can be damaging to your grout and is also dangerous to get on your skin and harmful when inhaled. Hydrogen peroxide is a great option to clean and whiten your grout naturally!

How do you clean really dirty grout?

Really dirty grout can be cleaned with a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and baking soda, and scrubbed with a strong bristled scrub brush.

As you can see from my before photos, I don’t think my grout could have been dirtier. It was white grout that looked BROWN! After letting the hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and dish soap mixture sit on it for 10 minutes, it came right off with a few swipes of the brush.

How do I get my grout white again?

You can get your grout completely white again with a simple homemade grout cleaner using baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, dish soap, and a scrub brush or toothbrush. This natural, DIY grout cleaner will take dirty, black looking grout and turn it completely white again!

Be sure to let it sit on the grout for a bit (5-10 minutes) and don’t skip on on the hydrogen peroxide or replace it with anything else. Hydrogen peroxide has natural, whitening properties that are similar in effectiveness to bleach!

I hope you loved this DIY grout cleaner as much as I did. I have had SO many compliments on our tile floor since I used this cleaner. My 5 year old son even said, “why is the floor so white?” LOL because that’s how its suppose to look honey, it was just dirty before!

If you love whipping up your own DIY cleaners, here are a few more posts you might like:

What is the best homemade tile grout cleaner?