Which Selleys wet area silicone do you need, and how do you choose?

Five products sit in the Selleys wet area range. All of them are for the same environment — showers, baths, basins, sinks, kitchens and laundries — and all of them are built around the same core requirement: a watertight seal that resists mould and mildew growth in a space that stays damp.

Because they share that baseline, the choice between them is not usually about sealing performance. It comes down to what you want the bead to look like and how you want to apply it. Two of the five are distinguished by finish, one by the fact it needs no gun, and one by being the trade-specified neutral cure product.

What this category covers

The product listing on the live category page is loaded dynamically and could not be captured, so this page is built from the five products the live sitemap lists under this path. Selleys also publishes a range overview for the family at Selleys Wet Area Silicone in Detail and Selleys Wet Area Silicone Product, described as giving a waterproof and mould resistant seal that will not shrink.

How to choose

If mould is the main problem

Selleys No Mould Silicone Sealant is the product named for it — a water-tight seal that resists mould and mildew growth, for wet areas. If you are replacing a bead that went black, this is the obvious starting point.

If the bead going yellow is the main problem

Selleys White For Life Silicone Sealant is described as a long-lasting seal that will not yellow or blacken over time, for sealing around showers and sinks.

Yellowing and mould are two different failures with two different causes, and it is worth being clear which one you actually have. A bead that has gone black in patches has a biological growth problem. A bead that has gone uniformly cream or yellow has discoloured chemically. The remedy is a different product in each case, and using a mould-resistant sealant on a yellowing problem will not stop it discolouring again.

If you want a matte finish

Selleys Wet Area Matt White Silicone offers a premium matte finish with strong waterproofing, described as ideal for modern bathrooms, combining appearance with sealing performance.

This matters more than it sounds if the bathroom is specified in matte materials. A conventional silicone cures with a slight sheen that reads as a glossy line against matte tile, matte grout or flat paint. A matte bead sits into the finish instead of drawing attention to the joint.

If you do not want to use a caulking gun

Selleys Fix & Go Bathroom & Kitchen is a sealant that cures to produce a watertight seal and contains agents to resist the growth of mould and fungus. The Fix & Go name marks it as the ready-to-use option for smaller jobs.

If you want the trade neutral cure product

Selleys Pro Trade Wet Area Silicone is a high quality, 100% neutral cure silicone containing anti-fungicide to prevent mould and mildew growth in hot and humid areas.

Neutral cure is the specification to note. A neutral cure silicone does not release acid as it cures, which removes a compatibility question about the surfaces around the joint — relevant in a bathroom, where a single joint can involve tile, glass, a metal fitting and a stone or engineered benchtop. Where you are unsure what the sealant will be in contact with, the neutral cure product is the more cautious choice.

The products in this range

• Selleys No Mould Silicone Sealant — water-tight seal that resists mould and mildew growth, for wet areas.
• Selleys White For Life Silicone Sealant — a long-lasting seal that will not yellow or blacken over time, for showers and sinks.
• Selleys Wet Area Matt White Silicone — premium matte finish with strong waterproofing, for modern bathrooms.
• Selleys Pro Trade Wet Area Silicone — high quality 100% neutral cure silicone with anti-fungicide for hot and humid areas.
• Selleys Fix & Go Bathroom & Kitchen — cures to a watertight seal and contains agents to resist mould and fungus growth.

The safety divide in this category — two of the five are Danger products

These five sealants do the same job in the same room, and they do not carry the same hazard. The split follows the cure chemistry rather than the finish or the format, which means it is invisible from the front of the pack.

Group	Products	Classification
Danger — serious eye damage	Fix & Go Bathroom & Kitchen, White For Life	Eye damage Category 1, H318 — damage that may not reverse — plus skin irritation Category 2
Warning — skin sensitiser	No Mould Silicone Sealant, Wet Area Matt White, Pro Trade Wet Area Silicone	Skin sensitisation Category 1, H317, with eye irritation Category 2A rather than eye damage

The two hazards trade against each other, which is the part that is easy to miss. The two Danger products are the only two in the category that carry no skin sensitisation classification. The three Warning products are the only three that do. Moving away from the eye hazard does not move you to a product with nothing to declare — it moves you to a different hazard, on a different part of you, with a different time course.

The two hazards also have different shapes. Eye damage at Category 1 is a one-event injury — a squirt back out of a blocked nozzle, with fifteen minutes of irrigation and a trip to hospital as the first aid. Fix & Go Bathroom & Kitchen is the one to watch, because it is a hand-squeezed tube rather than a cartridge in a gun, and a tube that unblocks under thumb pressure fires upward on a job that felt too small to put glasses on for. Skin sensitisation is the opposite: cumulative, invisible at the time, and permanent once acquired, built up by smoothing beads with a wet fingertip bathroom after bathroom. That makes it a trade problem more than a homeowner one, and Pro Trade Wet Area Silicone is the product most likely to be used that way.

The compatibility divide is separate, and it decides more jobs than the hazard divide does. Three of these are acetic cure — No Mould, White For Life and Fix & Go Bathroom & Kitchen — and release acetic acid as they set, which is the vinegar smell over the first day. Acetic acid attacks copper-bearing metals, zinc, concrete and cement products, natural stone, and the silvered backing of a mirror. Two are neutral cure: Pro Trade Wet Area Silicone and Wet Area Matt White, which cures through an oxime system and has no acid to release. The page above notes neutral cure as the cautious choice where a joint meets tile, glass, metal and stone at once; the point worth adding is that there are two neutral cure options in this range, not one, and one of them is the matt finish product. Ventilate either way while the bead cures — a freshly sealed shower recess is a small space with no airflow.

Comparing the five on the numbers that decide the bead

Skin time governs how much of a run you can tool before the surface stops taking a finish. Cure rate governs when the joint is actually strong. Fix & Go Bathroom & Kitchen publishes no technical specification table, so it is left out of the table rather than estimated.

Product	Working window	Cure rate	Movement capability	Service temperature
Pro Trade Wet Area Silicone	Skin time 4 to 8 minutes	10mm in 5 to 7 days	±25%	−60°C to 170°C
White For Life	Tooling 5 minutes; skin 10 minutes; tack-free 17 minutes	6mm in 24 hours	See product page	10°C to 35°C
Wet Area Matt White	Tooling window 5 to 10 minutes	Full cure 72 hours	See product page	−40°C to 150°C
No Mould Silicone Sealant	Skin time 20 minutes	2mm in 24 hours; shower ready in 1 hour; full cure at least 48 hours	±25%	See product page

The working windows differ by a factor of four, and the trade product is the least forgiving. Pro Trade skins in four to eight minutes; White For Life is tooled within five and tack-free at seventeen; Matt White gives five to ten. No Mould gives twenty. A full shower recess is three or four metres of bead, and the honest consequence of a five-minute window is that you cannot gun the whole recess and then tool it — you gun and tool one joint at a time. That is second nature to someone who does it daily, which is exactly who Pro Trade is sold to. For a first attempt at a bathroom, the twenty-minute product is the one that lets you fix a bad section before it has set.

Shower ready and fully cured are different claims, and only No Mould publishes both. Ready to shower in one hour describes the surface shedding water; full cure at least 48 hours, with an explicit instruction not to touch it before then, describes strength through the bead. They are not in conflict, and the failure people actually cause is running hot water over a bead that has skinned but not cured through — it does not wash away, it deforms at the back where the bond is still soft, and the leak appears months later. If you can leave a new bead overnight before the first shower, do.

The service temperature figures are worth a glance before the finish decides the purchase. Pro Trade publishes −60°C to 170°C and Matt White −40°C to 150°C; White For Life publishes 10°C to 35°C, the same range as its application temperature. In a heated indoor bathroom none of that bites. Around a spa bath, a hot tap outlet, an unheated bathroom in a cold climate, or a laundry against an uninsulated external wall, it is the specification to check on the product page before you seal.

Common questions

Which one should I use in a shower?

Any of the five is catalogued for wet areas. Choose on the failure you are trying to avoid: No Mould for mould growth, White For Life against yellowing and blackening, Wet Area Matt White for a matte finish, or Pro Trade Wet Area Silicone for a neutral cure product with anti-fungicide.

What is the difference between mould resistance and not yellowing?

They are different problems. Mould resistance targets biological growth on and around the bead. White For Life is described as not yellowing or blackening over time, which is about the sealant's own appearance.

What does neutral cure mean and why would I want it?

Pro Trade Wet Area Silicone is described as 100% neutral cure. A neutral cure silicone does not release acid as it cures, which removes a compatibility question about the materials around the joint.

Which one do I use if I only have a small job?

Fix & Go Bathroom & Kitchen is the ready-to-use option in this range, cured to a watertight seal and containing agents that resist mould and fungus.

Will a matte silicone seal as well as a gloss one?

Wet Area Matt White Silicone is described as combining a premium matte finish with strong waterproofing, so the finish is presented as an addition to sealing performance rather than a trade against it.

Can I use a wet area silicone on a roof or gutter?

No. Roof and gutter work has its own range under roofing silicone, formulated for UV and weather exposure.

Do I need to remove the old bead first?

New sealant does not bond reliably over cured sealant. Selleys Sealant Remover is made for stripping unwanted sealant and leaving surfaces ready for a fresh start.

What about the gap between the wall and the skirting in a bathroom?

That is a filling job rather than a sealing job. Selleys makes a water-resistant filler with a fungicide for damp rooms — see No More Gaps Bathroom & Kitchen — but it is specifically not for gaps around baths, sinks or in showers, which need a wet area sealant.