Natural Stone Safe Household Cleaning Products

Natural stone is beautiful but delicate and if you are easily annoyed by dull spots and inconsistent finishes on your counters, floors and showers it may not be the surface for you. Marble, Limestone and Travertine all react quickly when an unsafe product comes into contact with it. You may not even realize that you accidentally over sprayed an unsafe product onto the counter while you were cleaning the sink faucet and now you have little marks all over the counter. Same goes for the shower door. You are wiping it down using something like Meyers Clean Day Tub and Tile Cleaner which does awesome on glass by the way, and now all of the sudden there are spots all over the floor under the shower door. A day or two goes by and all of the sudden the light hits just right and you see the dreaded spots. “What the heck? Where did these come from” you ask yourself. Unfortunately you just created your first etch marks. Those are etch marks are now on there until you can call a professional out to remove them with machines. Those pesky spots were made instantaneously when the acid in the cleaner came into contact with the calcium carbonate in the natural stone. “GREAT!!!! So now what?”… read more to find out which natural stone safe household cleaning products I recommend to be safe on and around your travertine, marble and limestone surfaces.

So, to avoid this type of fiasco in the future you should try and only use natural stone safe household cleaning products on all the surfaces in your home. So what type of household cleaners can I use? I have compiled a small list and documented most of the tests I did in this youtube video. Basically it all comes down to chemistry… Alkaline’s and Acids. Alkaline soaps are safe to use on your natural stone while acids are not.

Tile Girl’s list of safe natural stone household cleaning products and my findings:

SAFE Natural Stone Household Cleaning Products:

Clorox

Ammonia

Mr. Clean Magic Eraser

DAWN dishsoap

Windex is fine to use on your windows and mirrors. If it comes into contact with your stone it appeared to be just fine maybe a very slight dulling but it was inconclusive.

Soft Scrub- Safe to use in your sink and toilets and will be safe around your stone surfaces that are near the sink and toilet.

Baking Soda and Water- This is meant for stone countertops

Home Depot- Aquamix Marble, Travertine Limestone and Slate Cleaner

Home Depot- Grout Deep Clean

NOT SAFE- Natural Stone 

Vinegar

Melaluca Tub and Tile Cleaner

Meyers Clean Day Tub and Tile Cleaner

Meyers Clean Day Dish Soap leaves a small etch mark

NOT RECOMMENDED even though it didn’t appear to leave a mark.

Tilex with bleach

Home Depot- Heavy Duty Tile & Grout Cleaner – This helps to get wax off your travertine and is safe to use on y our natural stone though it does appear to dull the surface just a bit. If you have wax on your travertine, marble or limestone floor it’s best to leave the removal to the experts. Call us for your free estimate on removing wax from your natural stone.

I hope that this list help you to determine the cause of you etch marks and to prevent further etching in the future