If the grout looks icky, the tile (and the whole bath) looks icky too. Sometimes grout can get discolored and no amount of cleaning and scrubbing seems to improve things.
A friend of ours was constantly battling the grout in her old condo and used one of these whitening pens (2 pack, $12.95) and was very happy with the results.
It's called Grout-Aide and is anti-bacterial and anti-mold, non-toxic and odorless. It is water-based and fast drying to a waterproof finish/seal. Each marker covers 175 lineal feet of grout.
Definitely not the most glamorous product ever, but from what we've seen and heard, it works!
Available at Solutions.
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Oh I am so happy to have ventured over to AT Chicago! I just posted a question about bleach-free grout cleaning and this looks like just the ticket! Thanks so much!
Ooh... mama wants!
Sold!
I have a big French-style kitchen with blue-blue tile and white-white grout in my current apartment. We inherited some pretty nasty coffee or tea stains (at least, that's what I'm hoping they are...nasty/gross.) and I tried using these pens. They're great, but I don't think they do anything that a toothbrush and bleach wouldn't accomplish at a fraction of the price.
You need a lot of this goo to do a mid-size kitchen. If you have a small section of tile to do, 1 or 2 pens should do the trick.
If you're tackling tough stains or have a lot of space to cover, go for the old-school bleach menthod. The pens are expensive for the amount of bleach you get and it just seems silly to use them for a bigger job when a gallon of cheap-o bleach is just a couple of bucks.
Just my 2 cents. :)
A good stain remover for grout is a tube of toothpaste and an old toothbrush. This works really really good on tiled floors where the grout has turned dark over time.