Do you ever find that your favourite room at home changes depending which space has been most recently decorated/renovated? It certainly does for me. We’re very fortunate to have two full bathrooms, a family one on the first one and our top floor en-suite which the previous owners added when they did a loft conversion. Neither are in a completely finished state and since our en-suite got a little temporary makeover when we first moved in 5 years ago, it’s starting to look at little tired around the edges.
Ultimately we want to take out the bath and replace it with a proper wet room but we’re not ready just yet so it’s a case of make do and mend to try and keep it looking fresh especially as it’s currently our only functioning shower and the bathroom guests use if they stay the night. I was feeling a little despondent over futile efforts to keep the grout and sealant looking sparkly clean and have tried many different remedies over the years, all to no avail.
Luckily for me, The Rainbow Liquid Chalk Specialists sent over a couple of products for me to try and ever the cynic I wasn’t convinced. However, using it as an opportunity for one of my #dailyDIY projects last week, I got stuck in to see if I could transform the grout from mouldy neglected state to worthy of a luxury hotel bathroom. Well, not quite but you get the gist.
As is normal, we had blobs of discolouration along the sealant in places where the grout meets it, and just a general discolouration around the lower parts of the tiles where the water from the shower is concentrated the most. I started off with the grout pen and I’ll be honest, I didn’t quite read the instructions properly to activate it…
The idea is that you give it a good old shake and then depress the nib a few times to release the flow of paint/colour before dragging it along your grout to cover. Of course I spent about an hour trying to do it by vigorously shaking the pen and wondering why I wasn’t really getting anywhere. Read the instructions kids, it sure does save a lot of time.
Once I got going though I was off and it REALLY DOES WORK. I didn’t really need more than one coat but did go back over a few areas with stubborn marks. An added bonus is that in theory this is meant to contain an anti-buildup formula so watch this space to see if my mould really is banished for good:
The Rainbow Chalk Grout pen revives tired, dirty grout returning your tiles to their former glory and making your kitchen or bathroom beautiful again. What’s more, the anti-fungal formulation halts future mould and bacteria build up, keeping the steamier rooms in your home beautiful for longer. It works for both wall and floor tiling and we have two different nib sizes to cater for differing grout widths.
The sealant pen I was less impressed by, it just really didn’t seem to adhere well to the sealant despite it being clean and dry. It felt like each time I was trying to move the pen the ink flow just ran out super fast despite depressing the nib as instructed. It did cover more severe areas in part, but I found myself going over it all with the grout pen. I should add though – we resealed and regrouted the bathroom when we moved in because it was in such a bad state but we didn’t know anything about DIY then and our attempts were very amateurish so I don’t know if that affected the sealant pen from working more efficiently since the sealant isn’t very smooth to work with.
Overall though I’m incredibly happy with the end result especially since I had a friend staying on Sunday evening and the en-suite looked so much cleaner and more pleasant to use. The grout pen is just £3.50 and comes in a number of different colours to match the area you’re working on. The sealant pen is £3.99. I also love that they’re water-based and non-toxic, much better for the environment and our homes. I would definitely recommend either of them as a hassle-free, cost-effective way to spruce up your bathrooms.
Thank you to The Rainbow Liquid Chalk Specialists for sending me a grout pen and sealant pen in return for my honest review. As always, sharing only products that I think you would love.