Ultimate Buyers Guide to the Best Marble Shower Cleaner

After scouring the web in an attempt to find the best marble shower cleaner, we found there was no single comprehensive guide to the best marble shower cleaner. So, we decided to take our research and develop our own ultimate buyer’s guide to the best marble shower cleaner.

Through weeks of web research, we discovered 5 highly recommended shower cleaners. We bought these cleaners and tested all of them. After hours of testing, we concluded that the best marble shower cleaner is MarbleLife’s Bathroom Cleaner Kit. It does a great job of tackling daily cleaning while also providing stain cleaning power to shower-specific stains like soap scum and grout stains.

Runner Up

MB Stone Care’s Bath and Shower Kit has some serious cleaning power. This is a close second for the best Marble Bathroom Cleaner!

The Winner

Our Recommended Marble Shower Cleaners

You can’t beat MarbleLife’s Marble Bathroom Cleaner Kit. This kit handles your shower troubles. From soap scum to grout cleaner, MarbleLife’s products do it all!

*At the time of writing this.

Why You Should Take Our Word For It

We spent 11 hours digging through over 100 websites to identify the most highly recommended marble shower cleaners.  We also dove into reviews on products on Amazon and on industry-specific sites like CountertopSpecialty, Marble Life, Granite Gold, Reddit, and other natural stone forums. We also researched each company’s background to determine their depth of experience with marble care.

After these hours of research, we selected 5 products to acquire and test.

This report strives to discover which marble shower cleaner is best for everyday use on all forms of marble. This guide is the best and most detailed review of marble shower cleaners on the web. We hope after you read this, you agree!

Our tested Shower Marble Cleaners

How We Selected Marble Shower Cleaners

To find the best shower marble cleaner, we started with the top listings on Amazon to get an idea of what people were buying. Then, we searched the web for reviews on marble cleaners to see what others were talking about. We then searched hundreds of websites where we found products within industry specific sites and added these to our list, too.

We were only able to identify three cleaners specifically designed for bathrooms. In order to conduct a thorough test, we acquired and tested a general marble cleaner and compared performance it to the shower specific marble cleaners.

Our 5 Tested Marble Bathroom Cleaners

MB Stone Bath and Shower Kit

This product is manufactured by MB Stone Care who have been in the marble business since 1989. The company has an impressive history in the marble business conducting marble installation and restoration. Their founder was renowned for “education before sale,” which ensured his customers knew how to treat and care for marble prior to buying of his products or services. MB Stone Care now manufacturers over 30 marble care-specific products.

We selected this product to test because of the company’s history and reputation in the marble care business, and because of the product capability.

The MB Stone Bath and Shower Kit can tackle everyday shower care while also taking on tough stains like mold and soap scum. The price is a little higher since it comes with three separate products. This kit is recommended by several third party websites from the US, Europe, and Australia.

Granite Gold’s Shower Cleaner

This product is manufactured by Granite Gold who have 50 years of experience in the stone installation and restoration business. Since 2003, they have been manufacturing stone care/stone products for do-it-yourself stone care.

We selected this product because of its popularity and positive reviews on Amazon. It is also a much cheaper solution compared to its competitors.

MarbleLife Marble and Travertine Bathroom Kit Cleaner

The MarbleLife Bathroom Kit is made by MarbleLife, one of the largest marble restoration services in the world. MarbleLife is currently the largest provider of marble floor polishing services worldwide.

We selected this product because of the company’s extensive experience in the marble care industry, and the its proven innovation in creating products to simplify marble restoration.

This product has the ability to take on everyday cleaning needs, grout cleaning, and soap scum removal. This multi-use capability comes with a higher (but worthwhile) price tag.

409 Stone and Steel

This product is made by 409, a well-known multi-functional cleaner company.

We chose this product because 409 makes a proven multi-surface general cleaner and we wanted to test another product from a non-marble specific industry company. This cleaner also has a lower price tag than marble-specific options and we wanted to see how it preforms on marble showers.

Black Diamond Marble and Tile Concentrated Cleaner

This marble cleaner is made by Black Diamond, a company that has been making marble care products since 1997. Black Diamond has earned a positive reputation in the marble care industry for developing quality marble care products. Now, they produce over 30 marble care products.

We selected the Black Diamond Marble and Tile Concentrated Cleaner because the product  is popular on amazon. We hypothesized that as a tile cleaner, it may be effective on marble showers. We wanted to test a concentrated cleaner to determine its performance compared to typical marble cleaners. Also, since this product is concentrated, it is a more affordable solution relative to the traditional marble cleaners.

How We Judged

Our goal was to find a cleaner that effectively removes dirt, grout stains, and soap scum; is safely usable on any marble surface; and is streak-free. Below is why each of these factors is important.

Cleaning Power

Ultimately, the goal of the shower cleaner is to keep your marble looking new and shiny. To accomplish this, the marble cleaner must be able to remove shower stains like soap scum, grout stains, and mold or mildew.

We tested several marble cleaners to determine the performance of each and compare them to one another. Two of these products come in a kit where each part of the kit has a specific cleaning function. For example, the MB Stone Care Shower and Bath Kit has a marble cleaner, a marble soap scum remover, and a marble mold remover. Each bottle has a specific function, but each bottle adds to the total cost of the kit. Conversely, the Granite Gold Shower Cleaner tries to accomplish all these functions within one bottle.

It must be noted as well that not all marble showers will have soap scum or mildew, and these problems can usually be prevented by cleaning your shower after use.  If you do not have these problems, you won’t need to buy the more comprehensive bathroom kit.

However, we still tested the effectiveness of the cleaners for all of these issues since mold and soap scum are very common in marble showers.

Safety of Use

Universal pH Indicator paper

The ideal marble shower cleaner must be able to clean the marble without harming it. This may seem a little extreme, but most traditional bathroom cleaners contain harsh chemicals that will etch the marble surface and do more harm than good.

Marble is made of calcium carbonate, and this compound chemically reacts with acid if they encounter one another. The chemical reaction is called etching, and results in a small spot on your marble surface being dissolved, which leaves behind ugly dull marks on your stone. This sort of destruction would render the “cleaner” counterproductive.

pH Balance Chart

To determine if a cleaner is safe for your marble shower, we need to determine if the marble cleaner is acidic. We will does this with universal pH paper.

You may remember litmus paper from your high school chemistry; it essentially tells you the pH of a liquid. Universal indicator paper does the same thing, but provides more specifics on the actual pH of the liquid rather than simply saying ‘acidic, neutral, or basic.’

You’ll see a lot of marble cleaners claim in their sales pitch or introduction that they are “pH neutral,” meaning they have a have pH of around 7. Although this is good to prevent etching, you’re going to have a hard time effectively removing grease at this pH level.  The cleaner will either need to be acidic or alkaline to actually remove grease and oils from your marble.

As we’ve stated, an acidic cleaner is not an option with marble. Your marble cleaner will have to a pH level of at least 7, and to be an effective cleaner it will need to be alkaline (sometimes called ‘basic’) which means a pH of greater than 7 — especially against tough bathroom stains like mold and soap scum.

The Marble Institute of America recommends the use of ammonia to remove soap scum, but warns that repeated or frequent use can possibly dull the surface of marble. Ammonia has a pH of roughly 11.5-12. Using this as a reference point, we can deduce that a safe marble cleaner’s maximum limit should be around 12.

To remove mold, mildew, and other organic stains, the Marble Institute of American recommends using bleach which has a pH of around 12 to 12.5

A safe marble bathroom cleaner should have a pH no lower than 7 and a maximum pH of around 11 or 12. For cleaners like soap scum remover or mold remover that are used less frequently, the cleaners pH can approach 12. However, for a daily cleaner, the pH levels should max out around 11.

Streak-Free Cleaning

Have you ever cleaned windows on a hot day? You spray your window cleaner on the window, begin wiping it down, and then realize half the window cleaner has evaporated and left streaks on your windows. Streaks from cleaners are frustrating and counterproductive, and we want to avoid them at all cost.

The best marble bathroom cleaner should clean streak free. We tested these shower cleaners to ensure they met this requirement.

How We Tested

Cleaning power, safety of use, and streak-free cleaning are the three metrics we used to objectively determine which marble cleaner preforms best. Below is how we tested each of these.

Does It Clean?

Bathroom Marble Cleaner Dirt test Setup

We put these products to the test by actually cleaning a dirty marble shower. We created 3 separate tests to test each cleaners performance against dirt, soap scum, and mold.

To test against dirt and other grime in the shower,  we created a grid along the dirtiest part of the shower by sectioning off 5 blocks to test each cleaner against one another. We used the same type of microfiber wash cloth with each cleaner and the same cleaning time and motions to ensure we did not create any biases towards either cleaner. [Disclaimer: We are, of course, not cleaning robots, so we could not test each section completely the same; however, we worked very hard to clean each section as similarly as possible so we could objectively measure the results!]

Since this part of the shower was the dirtiest part, this first test not only tested the marble cleaner’s ability to remove dirt but also its ability to tackle some pretty tough soap scum piled up around the drain.

As you can see in the dirt test setup image, dirt has also built up on the grout. A secondary objective of this test was to determine how well these cleaners tackled cleaning the grout in the shower. Because who wants clean marble tile with dirty grout?

Bathroom Marble Cleaner Soap Scum Test Setup

Our second test was used to determine how effective each cleaner was at tackling soap scum in the shower. This one was important since soap scum is one of the most common problems in marble shower care and can be tough to tackle without the right resources. We sectioned off an area in the marble shower that had some serious soap scum pileup due to soap run off from the marble shower seat. We divided the areas into sections to clean and compare against one another just as we did in test 1. Each section was cleaned with the same type of microfiber towels and soft brushes, and we worked very hard to replicate the same cleaning methods within each section.

Our final cleaning test on a dirty marble shower was to test the cleaner’s ability to remove mold and mildew stains. We found this test to be difficult to replicate from one cleaner to the other because we were just cleaning mold inside of a shower, not growing 5 equal sections of mold and cleaning each section. However, to remain as objective as possible, we tackled 5 different mold areas with the same brush, cleaning motion, cleaning pressure, and cleaning time for each marble cleaner and were able to generate some solid, objective findings.

pH Indicator Test Results for Each Shower Marble Cleaner

Is It Safe to Use?

Safety of use is an essential requirement to ensure that the marble cleaner does not damage the marble during cleaning. This is tested by determining the pH level of the cleaner.

As discussed above, a safe cleaner is defined by having a pH between 7 and 11.5. We will determine the cleaners’ pH balance by using universal indicator paper.

Is It Streak-Free?

To determine if the cleaner left the surface streak-free, we tested the cleaner on a mirror so the streaks would be easily identified.

Streak Free Test Setup

We added two teaspoons of marble cleaner to the mirror and wiped the surface with a clean paper towel. We used a repeatable motion to replicate the test as closely as possible with each cleaning solution. Short of having a cleaning robot, this was the best we could do to design an experiment that was completely objective for each cleaner.

After the cleaner was wiped off the mirror, we recorded any streaks left behind.

Results: The Best Marble Shower Cleaner

The Winner

After running these three tests, we found that MarbleLife’s Bathroom Cleaner Kit is the best marble shower cleaner for all your marble surfaces.

The biggest discriminator for this cleaner was its ability to easily cut through the soap scum, which made it easy to wipe away rather than having to scrub hard to get results.

Pros:

• Removed 95-100 % of grit, dirt, and soap scum for Test 1 setup.
• Restored original color to grout using the MarbleLife Grout Cleaner.

• pH levels are all in the safe range; the marble cleaner has a pH of 10, while the grout cleaner and soap scum remover had pH levels of around 11-12.
• The marble cleaner delivers a great, streak-free shine.

• If you only need one of the products in the kit, they are all sold separately.

Cons:

• Grout cleaner and soap scum remover left small streaks behind.
• About 65 % of the cleaner is removed in the streak-free test (compared to 95% using MarbleLife’s Marble Cleaner). However, this is not surprising given they are designed to remove some pretty tough stains. We recommend using the MarbleLife Marble Cleaner after the use of either of these products.

• Kit was not very effective at removing mold and mildew stains since it does not come with a mildew remover. However, MarbleLife does sell an effective mildew remover product separately.

The Winner

You can’t beat MarbleLife’s Marble Bathroom Cleaner Kit. This kit handles most of your shower troubles, everything from soap scum to grout cleaner. MarbleLife’s products do the heavy lifting!

Also Sold Separately 

MarbleLife’s Marble Cleaner

MarbleLife’s Soap Scum Remover

MarbleLife’s Grout Cleaner

MarbleLife’s Mold & Mildew Remover

If you need to tackle a specific problem in your shower, one of these products may be better for you than the whole kit. However, over the long term, the kit is the most cost-effective solution and will make marble shower maintenance a lot easier. Above are the links to the products.

The Runner-Up

A close runner-up is the MB Stone Care Bathroom and Shower Kit. These cleaners preformed just as well as the MarbleLife products, so we highly recommend these products from a cleaning power standpoint. However, their higher cost put them in second place.

Pros:

• Easily cleans soap scum and grit. Removed 95-100% of marble contaminates in Test 1.

• Marble cleaner delivered a streak-free shine.
• All products are safe to use with marble and have safe pH levels.

• The mildew remover is very effective and removed about 95 % of the mildew stains. Only a very faint stain was left behind.

Cons:

• This kit was not very effective at removing grout stains.
• Mildew cleaner and soap scum remover left small streaks behind. About 60% of cleaner is removed in the streak-free test (relative to the best marble cleaner of 95 % removal). However, this is not surprising given they are designed to remove some pretty tough stains. We recommend using the marble cleaner after the use of either of these products to remove any streaks that are left behind.

Runner Up

MB Stone Care’s Bath and Shower Kit has some serious cleaning power. This is a close second for the best Marble Bathroom Cleaner!

Also Sold Separately 

MB Stone’s Marble Cleaner

MB Stone’s Mildew Stain Remover

MB Stone’s Soap Scum Remover

MB Stone’s Grout Cleaner

If you need to tackle a specific problem in your shower, one of these products may be better for you than the whole kit. However, over the long term, the kit is the most cost-effective solution and will make marble shower maintenance a lot easier. Above are the links to the products.

The Competition’s Results

The competition had some varied results. If you’re on a budget, we recommend the use of 409 Stone Cleaner and the Granite Gold Shower Cleaner for daily cleaning inside your marble shower. Both of these products performed reasonably well during Test 1 by removing almost all dirt from their respective test grid and both have safe pH levels. However, neither of them did well removing soap scum, and the scrubbing in Test 1 was difficult because these cleaners did not effectively cut through the soap scum. These cleaners also had little effect to the mold in their respective mold and mildew removal tests.

In comparing these two cleaners to the MarbleLife and MB Stone Care products, you could physically feel the difference in the cleaning power. It was much more difficult to scrub out the soap scum and dirt in Test 1 with these two products relative to the winner and runner-up products.

We hypothesize this has a lot to do with the fact that the MarbleLife and MB Stone Care product kits have cleaners specifically designed for soap scum removal, which made all the difference. Therefore, if you have soap scum build-up in your shower, we highly recommend you purchase one of these speciality products either as the kit above or as a separate item.

The results from comparing the 5 different products confirmed our theory that these specialty products within the kits sold by marble-specific companies would perform best!

“In comparing these two cleaners to the MarbleLife and MB Stone Care products, you could physically feel the difference in the cleaning power. It was much more difficult to scrub out the soap scum and dirt in Test 1 with these two products relative to the winner and runner-up products.”

We do not recommend the Black Diamond Marble and Tile cleaner for use in the shower. It did not do well removing any of our test variables and was very difficult to clean with against soap scum buildup. Although this may be a great, affordable cleaner for everyday use, we believe the tests proved your money is better spent with the MarbleLife and MB Stone Care products when tackling tough stains in the shower.

If this article did not answer all your questions about the best marble shower cleaner, please comment below. We will answer your comment personally.

If this article was helpful, please share below so others can benefit as well!

​