I addressed one part of your question, and not the other! What color is your grout SUPPOSED to be? I'm curious what would be causing it to turn blue. Do you have well water? I can't remember which it is-- manganese or magnesium-- but one of the two in the water could do it. It could also be dyes from shampoos or soaps you're using. We need to figure out why it's turning blue before we can recommend something to clean it. I DO have a couple of suggestions, but I'll wait for your answer to this post before I say anything.

The grout color is supposed to be light tan (can't remember the exact color name). We do have well water and for the first 2 weeks we were without a softner. I believe the color change is from my shampoo or soap, both of which are blue/green in color. We used the same soap and shampoo at the old house and never had a problem with staining anything, but did not have new, light colored grout. Here's a picture. The top right what is should look like and the mid-section shows where the color has changed in many spots.

Thanks for your help!

If that's from your soap or shampoo, hitting it with a scrub brush and an Oxyclean solution should greatly help.

Thanks Bill.

I've hit it with 2 rounds of oxyclean. It has helped greatly, but not completely gone yet. Hopefully I can get it closer to what it should look like.

I was planning on getting it back to what it's supposed to look like, then sealing it, but after reading through my thick, new home binder I realized that if I seal the grout I will lose the warranty. I believe that they will come back in 1 year and repair any grout damage if it's not sealed. Would you recommend leaving the grout unsealed (and changing hair products)? I'm just surprised at how quickly that new floor was damaged.

Thanks again for your personal assistance with this.

Double the normal concentration on the Oxyclean, but don't go any stronger than that.

Would you recommend leaving the grout unsealed

You might be asking the wrong person about that. I've been interested in tile since I was 10 years old, when I helped my father with the tile in the house I grew up in. That's 41 years ago. During that time, I've never once sealed a single bit of grout, either in my parents' house, any of my sisters' homes, or my own. To me, with few exceptions, it's a waste of time and money.

But I'm in the minority.

Have your well water tested. We have acidic water and that is the exact color everything turned before our whole house filter was put in. If it is acidic, it will eat copper pipes. (Course, we live in an old house and have replaced most of them by now BUT...)

Good luck with that stain. If you get really desperate, maybe ... dare I say it...
a little pure bleach and a toothbrush?

The Oxyclean does a better job than bleach and is much safer for it.

crazyhouse6 I feel for you! Can you get your hands on a high-powered steamer? I bought one at KMart for about $30 or so and steamed some bad stains out of my kitchen grout. It works best when you spray a little cleaner, let it sit for a few minutes and then blast away. Or you could have a professional cleaner come in. If your bathroom is small I would try the home-steam gadget first. It takes some time and you can't fill it with a whole lot of water at a time but it's pretty effective. I think it's a "Shark" brand. Good luck!

What sorts of cleaning products did you use before the grout turned blue. We once ended up with blue grout on the walls of our shower after a housekeeper used some sort of cleanser like soft scrub on the shower walls and it looked exactly like your picture. I don't think the color of the product was blue but the grout sure was. I took over the job of cleaning that shower and once a week I just used a product like scrubbing bubbles and made sure I ran a sponge along each grout line, rinsed a then sprayed with Tilex. Big PITA but after about a month I had my white grout back. Is there any chance that a cleaning product, not your shampoo, could have done this?

We have acidic well water but with a neutralizer system. When my neutralizer needs ot be serviced, I get staining like what you are seeing.

Before you try any cleaning products, I recommend a water test. Check the yellow pages, see who can do a water test in your area and how to go about it. Here, I have to go pick up a kit which includes bottles and then fill them from the straight well water; before it hits my neutralizer system and water softener. Money well spent every other year or so just to make sure your water does not become contaminated with a neighbors runoff. If it is your water, left untreated it can eat through your pipes. If left untreated, you could have a much larger problem than stained grout.

Once you determine whether it is your water or not, you can determine your course of action. If it is your well water, it will continue to re-occur until you deal with neutralizing your water.

I haven't yet had time to try a stronger oxyclean solution, but hopefully will get to it tonight.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Sounds like it's quite possible it's from my water rather than just the shampoo. I had our water tested from several sources prior to adding the filter and can't remember the exact results, other than it was hard and had very little iron. We can totally tell the difference in the water since adding the filter, so hopefully once I get this cleaned it won't return. I put in a call to have the water tested again, now that the filter is in and running. Thanks again for the concern and advice!

I know I'm behind on this one, but I also think that you could be dealing with a water issue. I work in the commercial swimming pool business and the first answer to "why is the pool plaster turning blue/green?" is copper. High levels of copper in the water, or highly acidic water running through copper piping, will create that blue color. I think that now that you have the softener going and had the water tested, you'll be fine.

Green, I would understand, from over chlorination. Blue usually means (Not sure which) manganese or magnesium (one's blue, the other red).