OATEY 25631 Hercules® 5.5 oz. Plumbers Caulk™ Almond/Bone - Tube Display

It's the almond/bone shade, listed as a Bone finish. That's the tone to use around off-white tubs, sinks, and toilets rather than bright white fixtures. If the fixture is true white, pick the white version of the caulk instead, because a bone bead reads yellow against white porcelain.

The 25631 caulk is tack free in one hour, so the joint stops picking up dust and can be left alone that quickly. Full cure takes longer than tack-free time on any acrylic-latex sealant, so give it overnight before you flood a tub surround if you can schedule it that way.

Waterproof and described as extremely mildew-resistant, which is the property that matters in a tub surround or shower corner. It also resists shrinkage and stays flexible rather than crumbling, so the bead doesn't pull away from the joint as the fixture moves.

Two different jobs. This siliconized acrylic-latex caulk is a cured, flexible, waterproof bead for the visible perimeter seals: toilet base to floor, sink or tub rim to deck, escutcheon to wall. Plumber's putty never cures, so it's used under a sink strainer flange or a drain body where it stays soft and compressible and can be disassembled later. Don't substitute one for the other.

It's a siliconized acrylic-latex plumber's caulk, so it's water-cleanup and behaves like a latex sealant with added silicone for flexibility and water resistance. Pure silicone won't take paint at all; an acrylic-latex base is the type painters can work with, though Oatey's own literature for the 25631 doesn't state a paint instruction, so treat the color match as the intended finish.

Each tube holds 5.5 oz, about 0.01 cubic feet by volume at a 0.55 lb weight. That's a squeeze-tube size, not a 10 oz gun cartridge, so it's sized for a single fixture set, one tub perimeter or a couple of sink and toilet base joints, rather than a whole bathroom remodel. For production work, order the gun cartridge size.

Oatey states a 25 year life expectancy for the bead. Combined with the mildew resistance and shrink resistance, that's the reason it gets stocked as a standard truck and MRO item for turnovers rather than a general-purpose hardware-store caulk, which typically needs recaulking far sooner in a tenant shower.