What is sugar soap?

[julesinottawa]

I recently saw a show called "How Clean is Your House" made in the UK. Two cleaning divas go into a pigpen of a house and basically teach the owners how to take care of it and clean it. It was pretty gross as they took swabs throughout the house that came back with HUGE bacteria counts (like salmonella and e. coli). Anyway, they showed this homeowner that to clean the grout and tiles in her shower she could use "sugar soap" and it seemed to work pretty well.

Does anyone know what sugar soap is? If so, is it reasonably natural? Do you need to reseal grout after using it? I'm looking for something for the grout on my ceramic floors.

Thanks!

[northern_sunshine]

:

Oh and Hi down there in NS. Or are you in Ottawa? You're name says one and your location says another.

[Spastica]

Found some information on sugar soap. Turns out it's just what the UK and some other countries call washing soda mixtures - it does not contain neither sugar nor soap. In the USA, when we say something has sugar in it, as in Sugar Scrubs - it has brown sugar or coarse sugar in it.



Sugar soap is an industrial cleaning material, with a variable composition and supplied in either powdered or liquid form. The powdered form looks like granulated white sugar, which explains the first half of the name, although sugar soap contains neither sugar nor soap. It is a mixture of basic salts, such as sodium carbonate and sodium phosphate, dissolved in water to form an alkaline solution. It sometimes contains an abrasive such as sodium silicate.

Sugar soap is commonly used for cleaning paintwork in preparation for repainting.

The term appears to be used mainly in Commonwealth countries. In the United States, it refers to a cosmetic product.


from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_soap_%28cleaner%29