Out, out damn spot!

Rub Rub a dub dub scrubb a dub dub dub scrubb a dub

Summer whites? Fresh crisp linen trousers? Tomato, grass, red wine, soda, grease, garden dirt stains ???? Cleaning is part of our conservation work, and over the years, we have collected many international soaps, detergents, and stain removers. Collecting obscure and regional soaps has become a bit of an obsession. It has honed our language translation skills trying to decipher ingredient and how-to-use labels.

We don’t usually use these to clean historic textiles, but we have used them on our personal laundry. I mean we all want to attack those stains on our favorite shirts or shorts, right?

We’d love to know your favorite soap, or stain remover. Here are ours…

1 Fels Naptha
Since 1884 old fashioned American laundry soap in a bar. As the name indicates the soap used to contain naphtha, a solvent, which made it a combined detergent and solvent in one. The new formula is still effective for removing urushiol, the oil in poison ivy. Used as a pre-treatment for chocolate, sweat, makeup in particular. It is an effective cleaner.

2 Japanese Capic Blue Stick Yokosuka Soap “prison soap”
Made by prisoners, this is a disinfectant soap used for laundry. It is blue, so it brings out the sparkle in whites. It is ideal for disinfecting and removing stains from athletic socks, shoes, and shirts. This soap is easy to use in stick form, just wet the stick and apply it to the stained area to pre-treat before washing with the rest of your laundry.
Ingredients: Surfactant 90% pure soap (sodium fatty acid) 10% disinfectant, silicate, and fragrance.

3 French savon au fiel du boeuf
An 18th-century natural biodegradable recipe of beef gall soap—Marseilles soap—with 5% beef gall. This soap is especially effective for removing protein stains such as blood, curry, coffee, grease. By the way, Marseilles soap is extra pure; made by mixing seawater from the Mediterranean Sea, olive oil, and the alkaline ash from sea plants.

4 French stain remover stick, by Maître Savonitto 
bâtonnet magique détachant is called the savon magique détachant, or magic stain-remover soap. Ingredients: 30%+ soap/detergent without coloring (such as the purest Marseille soap), terre de sommière (or montmorillonite clay of mineral origin) and grape seed oil. The montmorillonite clay (a Bentonite clay named after its origin locality, Montmorillon, France) is formed from volcanic ash, which produces hydrated silicates (sodium calcium aluminum magnesium), containing valuable trace minerals such as calcium, magnesium and iron.  

What makes the montmorillonite clay unique is its high cation-exchange capacity (CEC) – the ability to adsorb and exchange cations (positively charged ions). This essentially means that the clay component will remove positively charged toxins and pollutants from your laundry, and has the most absorbent quality of all clays. Montmorillonite clay also removes odors. Check out Maître Savonitto.

5 Mexican laundry detergent and washing bar
For cleaning delicate garments and pre-treating oily stains. You can shave or grate the bar and use it in the laundry machine. Or pre-treat a dampened stain, wait 10 minutes, and launder. Ingredients are sodium tallowate (beef tallow), coconut oil, citronella oil, optical brighteners. Manufactured by Fabrica de Jabon la Corona. 

6 Batik Attack and Soap Nuts
A favorite Indonesian cleaner for fine batiks. Plant-based soap nuts or lerak (Sapindus rarak), combined with citric acid and sodium lauryl ether sulfate – considered effective to preserve the color of batik, and also really good for cleaning shining up silver jewelry. At home, just use natural soap nuts, soaked in hot water to soften and mashed into a lather, strain, and use.

7 Laundry Soap Powder – The Nettle Patch, Frostburg, MD
100% coconut oil soap, borax, washing soda. In the owner herbalist’s own words: I love how it cleans without leaving any residue, and makes laundry smell fresh and clean. Coconut oil has a high cleansing factor in soap, meaning it is really good at stripping dirt and oils. In high concentrations, it is drying to the skin, but wonderful for laundry, dishes, and household cleaning. Visit their shop here.