Tile haze: grout film, cleaner film, or etching.
A freshly tiled bathroom that looks disappointingly dull usually has a thin film of grout dried on the tile. It is easy to remove on porcelain and easy to ruin the stone removing on marble.
Grout haze is cement, adhesive or mineral residue that dried on the face of the tile during installation or a repair. It shows most at a low angle: dark porcelain looks cloudy, polished stone loses its reflection, textured tile holds it in every recess. Fresh, it wipes. Cured, it bonds, and then the method depends entirely on what the tile is.
Confirm it is haze
Soap scum, hard-water minerals, construction dust, a wax coating and cleaner residue all look like grout haze. So does etching on a stone floor, which is the one that matters, because the acidic haze removers sold for tilers are exactly what causes it.
Porcelain and ceramic
Vacuum the grit first so nothing gets dragged across the glaze. Wash with a pH-neutral cleaner in small sections, agitate with a non-abrasive pad, and rinse thoroughly with clean water before it dries; residual cleaner streaks, especially on dark or glossy tile. Stubborn cement haze takes a manufacturer-approved haze remover, tested on a small area first, worked in sections and rinsed the same way. Coloured grout can be lightened by an aggressive product, and polished porcelain can be scratched by an abrasive pad, so gentle beats strong here too.
Marble, limestone, travertine, terrazzo
No acid, no vinegar, no cement remover unless a stone specialist has confirmed it for that stone. On calcium-based stone these take the haze off and the polish with it, leaving dull marks that look like stains and are not. Haze bonded to polished stone comes off with stone-safe cleaning, a poultice, controlled mechanical cleaning or a light honing pass, after which the surface is brought back to an even finish.
When to stop experimenting
A film that survives neutral cleaning is a diagnosis question, not a stronger-product question: is it residue, minerals, soap, or has the surface been etched? On a feature marble floor, a large lobby or a bathroom that has to look right, hours of scrubbing a test patch is rarely the efficient route, and one wrong product is expensive.
Keeping it off
After tiling, ask which grout was used and how long it should cure before the final clean. Do not seal or coat over haze; sealing it in makes the later fix harder. Then a neutral cleaner, a squeegee in showers, and no bathroom sprays on stone.
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Related questions.
My marble shower looks cloudy. Is it ruined?
Almost certainly not. The cloudy film on a marble shower is soap, shampoo and hard-water mineral build-up sitting on the surface, not damage to the stone. Domestic cleaners either do nothing to it or, if they are acidic, etch the marble underneath while leaving the film in place. A stone-safe strip removes it and the stone underneath is usually fine. The reason it built up is nearly always a failed or missing sealer, so the job finishes with a penetrating sealer that resists the build-up coming back as fast. You will also want a cleaner that is pH-neutral, which we leave with you. Glass doors and tiled walls collect the same film, so a shower that has been cleaned with a supermarket product for years often has both a film on the surface and etching under it. The order of work is the same either way: the film comes off first, then the stone is honed where the acid has dulled it, then it is sealed.
I do not know what kind of stone I have. Does that matter?
Not for getting a quote. Send a photo and we can usually tell, and the difference between marble, limestone and travertine changes the method more than the price. If you want to check yourself: marble is usually veined and takes a high polish; limestone is more uniform and often honed; travertine has visible holes; granite is speckled and much harder; engineered stone is uniform with no natural veining and does not etch. A drop of lemon juice on an inconspicuous spot will etch marble and limestone within minutes and do nothing to granite or engineered stone. Wipe it off straight away either way.