Clean Grout with a Toothbrush?

The first introduction to grout, in my life, was my mother scrubbing grout with a toothbrush in our family home. I thought: How tedious that must be! And yes it was. Our house had these four- or six-inch (memory fails me) tiles in the kitchen, which I have since learned are not the best choice for kitchen counters. After all, how can you roll out dough on a tiled counter? How can you properly clean the thing?

Answer: you cannot. When grout goes really bad, there ain't much you can do about it, folks. Minor organic stains might come off with baking soda and toothbrush (or soft wire brush). The source of the problem is in the failure of the grout sealer. Anything that is properly sealed and non-porous is easier to clean. Grout is like the epitome of porous: it's just grit. So when scrubbing and praying fail, you may want to break out the grout colorant.

Grout colorant is often characterized as the last hope for nasty grout, but it can also be used simply to spiff up your tile. Tile installers often suggest tinted grout as a way of adding some panache to tile.