It all started with a dark brown basket that I’ve had for years that is filled with potpourri that sits in my bathroom. Add to that my new cleaners who do an incredibly thorough job, and I love them for folding my bed like a hotel bed. The result is… this basket sat in a small moist spot after they cleaned the granite countertops in the master bath, and the color from the basket transferred to the granite creating a new stain.
They tried to cover it with a paper towel to no avail.
With the long Memorial Day weekend, I decided I would fix this problem that I let sit in for roughly 2 months. Ok Google, tell me how to clean stains from granite. There were a number of sprays, but finally, I land on this article that says bleach is safe for granite and will whiten the stain without ruining the rock. I’m not sure that I trusted this article, but off I went to buy a tiny bottle of bleach at the local store.
Reading a couple more similar articles, I tried a mixture of bleach and water because all articles mentioned not to use pure strength bleach or didn’t have any recommendation as to the proportion of the water/bleach mixture. What the article are consistent about is to maintain good ventilation when using bleach and also make sure you cover the bleach with a piece of plastic so it doesn’t dry up before getting a chance to soak in. I used a ziplock sandwich as my plastic cover.
Day 1: 1/2 cup bleach + 1 gallon of water. Covered with plastic.
It’s lighter, but not really cutting it.
Day 2: Since it did get lighter, I’m getting more brazen with my proportions. Now I pour about a quarter sized puddle of bleach directly onto the darkest part of the stain. Next morning it’s looking generally great.
Day 3: The stain now is so faint, but I do one last round to make sure I’ve gotten coverage. I’m super thrilled that the stain is almost non-existent.
Overall I’m super pleased with the results. I probably could have fixed this sooner than taking three days, but I wasn’t sure if bleach would ruin the top layer of gloss on the granite. For my bathroom, everything worked out just fine and looks fantastic. If you’re trying this at home, I’d also suggest testing a corner just in case it doesn’t work as expected.
