Mapei (Black) - Grout Refresh - Black - 240ml Bottle

I have seen people use this to make dark grout lighter and this is a terrible idea unless you are doing an area that will never get dirty (in other words, not on a floor). If you try to lighten a dark grouted floor you are just begging for more dirt and more cleaning every few months. But if you want to go darker, that is great and if you go dark enough (we went black) it will make your cleaning jobs less frequent and easier. Yes, this also seals (it is basically just paint) but no grout sealer made prevents dirt accumulation and none make cleaning easier. I have done the tests to prove that. Sealers are basically worthless. The best way is always a color dark enough to hide the dirt that is unavoidable. If you don't believe this, go ahead and waste your time and money with a light color and in a few months you will find this out for yourself.

I was VERY skeptical of this product from reading reviews, but it worked GREAT for me--but read how and why... I read where people used a paint brush, and I thought that was rubbish and more tedious to even contemplate. Um...they were right--do it that way. I did my entire kitchen floor NOT using a teeny tiny brush and the clean up was hell. But, later, when I did my mudroom, I actually taped it off ( yes, used masking tape) some lines. I did not tape off each square, just vertical lines. I wasn't looking to mask it perfectly, just enough to cut down the cleaning process afterward. WOW...what a difference. Sure, once I took the tape off I had areas that were overlapped with tape and obviously missed, but nothing that was too crazy. And I used a small brush. I would not--NOT NOT, try to change the color too far from what the grout was originally. I had black grout, and bought the black--it is more of a dark gray but it was totally fine. I doubt you would have much success going from dark to light. My grout was chalky and discolored from sediment and cleaning build-up...none of which I was ever able to remove. This product made it look like the day the floor was first grouted. Make sure you have a small STIFF brush--like an artists brush from a craft store. Have a pail of water and some paper towels to catch any big spills as you go. SHAKE the bottle before starting. I read where someone said the bottle was hard to squeeze?? I just used utility scissors and made the spout of the bottle slightly bigger. I also poured some into a small disposable bowl. When I painted it on, I let it dry for more than an hour, peeled off the tape and then took my time to just clean the overage off of the tile, Don't wet it all down like you do with fresh grout. I am exhausted, it took 8 hours to do my kitchen ( average) and my mudroom. I do not plan on washing my floor for a few days so this has a chance to cure. Good Luck!

I will give this stuff 4 stars...….not 5...only because at this point it is hard to tell how it will hold up, and the instructions are lacking. I used it on 1/16th grout lines between granite tiles in a large kitchen---the grout hasn't been resealed or touched in about 14 years. Black granite tiles with CHARCOAL colored non-sanded Polyblend grout. Polyblend grout sealer is hard to find for me. This color matches Polyblends CHARCOAL grout. Couple observations: Clean your tiles and grout and dry thoroughly before you start...REMEMBER if you seal the granite at this point you'll seal the discolored grout---and no colored grout sealer may likely penetrate it, so don't do it yet. Either tape off the tiles (real PITA) or be ultra super careful and FAST as this product dries FAST and will leave streaks and marks on your granite tiles. Getting the product onto and soaking into the grout with small lines is a challenge as this product does not flood--its runny but not very, so you either use the smallest Q tip you can find or maybe a bunch of pipe cleaners---in any case you will end up with the product flooding over and out onto your tiles; I got frustrated and said to H with it, and used big Q tip and just smeared it into the grout, then cleaned as follows: use a DAMP not soaking but damp paper towel folded flat, and run with the grout line to remove excess product. It won't remove it from the grout if you keep it folded FLAT. Follow up by using a paper towel on both sides of the grout on the tiles to rub dry. You will use up an entire roll of paper towels for an average size kitchen. If you let this dry on your granite you will be rubbing hard to get off and you'll have worse marks than if you follow my instructions. After a day, I hit the granite with granite polish which of course hits the grout too- marks are barely noticeable and seem to have faded with time. It seems to have soaked in and after drying I cannot get any to come off with a fingernail and a paper towel rubbing into the grout lines. At this point I like it. This bottle is 10 TIMES the amount needed and my kitchen is very large---so fyi.

I used the black Grout Refresh, and it was more time consuming that I anticipated. Hubby and I started at 9 AM and finished at 5 PM. The one thing I noticed upon finishing was that my grout lines were a bit uneven a few places such as near the installed wood floor which goes into my bedroom - not noticeable with the beige grout. (Obviously not a Refresh problem). I have had the Refresh on for only a week so I'm not sure about durability, but it looks okay. I have used a plastic knife a few times in the past week to remove a bit of grout on the tile itself that I missed last Monday. If you look closely (eyes close to floor), you can (maybe) tell it's not the real grout color. I am a perfectionist so I am extra critical. Would I do it again? Perhaps after I first exhausted several methods of grout cleaner to bring back the original look to my kitchen floor. I put the Refresh on with a kid's toothbrush and touched up later with a Q-Tip. I learned that we had to leave it on longer than the 35 minutes to an hour. And the directions say to mist it with water after that time period. No, that didn't work for us. The color came off. So we left it on for about 90 minutes and then wiped it off with a rag, used a kitchen scratcher on my rough tile, and finally a bucket of clean water and thick sponge. The learning process....

Bought this to cover the Mapei Anthracite grout which turned out way lighter than we expected. We wanted a grout color that virtually blended in with the tile. It looked too busy with the lighter grout lines. Our tile is like a dark charcoal gray/light black tile. I bought this grout refresher in “black” and also a “black” grout marker from a different manufacturer. The grout marker was too black...like a black sharpie marker. It didn’t look right. To my surprise, this “black” grout refresher (paint) was an exact match. ***Be aware, it’s not really a “black” color***. It’s more like a dark charcoal color which, fortunately for us was the exact color we needed. We hadn’t sealed our tile/grout yet so, I used a small paint brush and painted each line...I didn’t even worry about not getting it on the tile. I then almost immediately wiped any surplus grout refresher off the tile with paper towels, lightly spritz with water from a squirt bottle and wiped some more. None of it came off the grout. It’s pretty watery and thin so I had to shake the bottle frequently. Our fireplace took about 3-4 hours to complete. The left side of the picture is the “after” and the right side is the “before”. So glad I bought this.