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Clean your outdoor furniture with soap cleaner
Sara Idenfors
When the delightful season when you can actually drink your coffee outdoors begins, the garden furniture deserves a little care.
Here we will give you some tips for both plastic and wooden furniture. These wooden garden furnishings have been left outdoors over the winter. As a result, they have turned gray and been affected by mold. The furniture is made of a harder type of wood (it is a little unclear exactly which one), but it is the kind typically used for garden furniture sold in furniture stores.
Since they have had a somewhat difficult time, they have nevertheless dried out and begun to develop small cracks.
This is what they looked like before we started. See the before photo below.
Here, we must begin by removing the black mold growth.
We do this using lukewarm water, hard soap, and a stiff scrubbing brush with plenty of scrubbing power. We use a generous amount of soap and scrub along the grain of the wood, never across it.
We scrub the entire piece of furniture, paying extra attention to areas where the wood is affected and has black spots.
Where there is no black mold growth, we use a softer brushe and hard soap. We then wipe off the soap and foam. Once we have done that, we take a compostable cloth, cool water, and plenty of liquid soap. We wipe the tabletop twice with soap and only a small amount of water.
Here you can really see how the superfatting soap penetrates the wood and replenishes its oils. See the images: before, after cleaning, and after we wiped it with cold water and liquid soap to replenish the oils. Clean, attractive, and now the owners just have to choose whether to continue scrubbing the furniture with soap or oil it. If you choose to soap it, it should be wiped with the superfatting soap and cold water a couple more times during the summer. If you oil it … well, that is a completely different story, and the instructions on the jar explain how to do it.
NOTE: The solid soap now comes in new packaging. It is available in a cardboard tub or a glass jar, but it is the same solid soap as before.
How to save your plastic furniture with soap
Plastic furniture does not need a stiff brush; here, we are simply cleaning a glossy plastic surface. We use an Ecofiber cloth, warm water, and soap. This is quick and easy, and all the black spots come off the surface easily. We wipe it down and, just like that, the job is done! Mold and algae do not like alkaline soap, and if you are a little “careless” about wiping off all the soap, it does not matter much; it will simply prevent mold and algae from taking hold again.
If the mold or algae growth is very severe, several soap scrubbings may be needed to get rid of it, but perseverance pays off, and the soap creates an environment that is unfavorable to mold and algae.
You may have heard that roof tiles used to be treated with soap; this was done for precisely this reason.