Description
Sort of a “Simple Green from France” type product, Theophile Berthon’s all-purpose black soap is used in various strengths of dilution to clean, degrease, polish, remove stains, or even wash your clothes. It isn’t profitable for us to import because of how heavy it is and how much it costs to ship, but we always try and get a bit whenever we order the profitable Berthon softwares, so the superfans can pick some up. I use it all the time in my house and a 1L bottle allows my clean freak wife to boss me around for a year or so of sanitation fuel.
For general household use, mix 1 tablespoon with 1 quart of hot water in a spray bottle. This is a good ratio for the stove, toilets, showers, countertops, sink basins, tiles/acrylics, etc.
You can use two tablespoons or so directly in to the detergent drawer of a modern washing machine, and if you need to use it for stain removal, apply directly and sparingly at full strength to the stain and let it sit for 20 mins or so, rinse off, and give it a go. If you’ve got an awful stain you can leave it on the stain in the dirty laundry bin for some days. If you don’t have a water softening system (or just real soft water), combining the black soap put in the drawer with just a little bit of distilled white vinegar in the machine’s canister allows you to reduce your soap dosage a bit and help to cut down on limestone deposits.
The only ingredient here is saponified olive oil, which means you can use it to clean, maintain and nourish leather sofas, jackets, and upholstery. Rub gently with a little soap on a soft cloth, and always do a screening test in a discreet area.
In your house garden, concentrated black soap’s a viable alternative to pesticides, fungicides, and other chemical herbicides…bugs don’t dig it because of its pH! Mix 1 tablespoon with 1 gallon of hot water for a spray bottle. For a more extreme approach, 1 teaspoon of black soap + 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper + 2 tablespoons garlic power with 2 cups of hot water can attack an insect problem well.
For vehicle/bicycle/motorcycle cleaning, put a little soap directly on a sponge and use that to wash stains/grease away, if it is an awful stain like tar try adding a dollop of baking soda. For the main body, 2 tablespoons of soap mixed with 1/2 gallon of water is fine.
You can also put this directly on a wire brush and scrub your barbeque grill or fire pit, then rinse with hot water.
