Life Hack: Six clever ways to clean almost anything with sugar soap

From shining your shoes to riding your drivewy of oil, sugar soap is a useful product to keep in the cupboard

Sugar soap can be a very useful item to keep in your home. Traditionally used to prepare and clean surfaces ahead of painting, it has a myriad of uses beyond DIY. It can be bought easily in hardware stores and is a powerful cleaning agent. Despite the name, it’s unlikely you’ll find any sugar in the one you buy off the shelf. Instead, the name refers to the granular consistency of the soap – it simply looks like there’s sugar mixed into it.

Toilet bowls 

Last week we focused on various ways to clean a toilet and one method that was not mentioned was sugar soap. It is effective at cutting through limescale in toilets, allowing a deeper clean as well as removing stains caused by limescale deposits. Using it to scrub, you’ll soon be left with a sparkly bowl.

Hardwood flooring 

Given the amount of foot traffic through our homes, it’s no surprise our floors can get so grimy. While there are many products we are advised to keep away from hardwood floors for fear or damaging them, sugar soap is safe to use to lift that dirt. Start scrubbing with a wet cloth to immediately see its impact. Change the water once it gets dark or black and continue cleaning until your floors shine. It also works brilliantly to clean tiled floors.

White runners 

If you wear white runners, you’ll know the constant battle to keep their white rubber soles as clean as the rest of the shoe. You can use a small amount of sugar soap on a cloth to gently rub at the surface to lift that dirt, restoring the shoes to their original white state.

Degreasing concrete 

It’s very frustrating to find your car is leaking oil, but while that is easily solved mechanically, the stain it leaves behind in a garage, driveway or road can be a constant irritation. However, it can be removed with sugar soap. To lift light oil and grease stains from concrete, apply the sugar soap and scrub to a lather. Rinse the soap away and repeat if necessary.

Cleaning walls 

Obviously, it is used ahead of painting, but sugar soap can also be used to clean stubborn stains on walls and ceilings. For example, if you live with a smoker, you might notice discolouration on the interior surfaces. Sugar soap will cut through the grime to restore the walls to a clean finish.

Tackle mould 

If you find mould in an area such as a bathroom, sugar soap can be used to remove it safely before repainting the surface with damp-proof paint. The soap can remove the visible mound, however it does not remove it completely – this will need a specialised treatment, such as mould spray or a white vinegar solution, to kill the spores.