528 DR. CUASE'S RECIPES. 



properly be applied to the cleansing of wearing apparel of all kinds, gloves, 

 boots and shoes, paint and grease about the house; ink, paint, tar and grease 

 spots upon clothing; also re-coloring faded and worn garments — in fact, every- 

 thing in the line of cleaning or renewal may come under this head. It will be 

 my purpose, then, to so explain as I proceed, the art of renovation that those 

 who desire to do so may restore their faded or injured or soiled garments to be 

 nearly equal to new. In the cities there are those who follow the various 

 branches of this art with great success and profit. The following recipes and 

 instructions will give the people the secrets of doing it at home just as 

 well as to pay for doing it away from home, and, no doubt, also give some of 

 the professional renovators some things new to themselves. The following 

 compound or soap will, probably, clean a greater variety of colored garments, 

 without injuring the cloth, than any preparation in use. Of course, I have not 

 practiced this art myself, but I obtained these recipes from a woman who lived 

 for a year or two in a house owned by me at the time, and who practiced the 

 art, and had renovated clothing for myself and other members of the family, 

 so I know their reliability. And I may be excused for saying I paid more for 

 these recipes alone ($5) than I get for the book. 



1. Renovating Soap. — Marseilles (French) or Parker's best soap, such 

 as used by barbers (I have seen Babbitt's common soap used, but the above was 

 the original recipe), ]4 lb. ; alcohol, 1 oz. ; beef's gall, 2 ozs. ; saltpeter, borax, 

 honey, sulphuric ether and spirits of turpentine, of each, J^ oz. ; camphor gum, 

 3 drs. ; pipe clay, 1 dr. ; common salt, 1 small tea-spoonful. Directions — Put 

 the camphor into the alcohol, the powdered pipe clay into the beef's gall, pul- 

 verize the saltpeter and borax and put them and the salt into the honey. After 

 2 or 3 hours slice the soap into a porcelain kettle, with the gall mixture, and 

 place over a slow fire, stirring till melted; take off and let stand until a little 

 cool ; then add all the other articles, stir well together and put into a glass fruit 

 jar as soon as possible, as it soon hardens; then screw on the top, to prevent the 

 evaporation of the strength, keeping in a dark closet, ready for use, as light 

 decomposes or injures it. 



Remarks. — Those desiring to engage in the business permanently can take 

 double or four times these quantities, according to the amount of work they 

 may expect to do. 



2. Clothes Cleaning.— General Directions— To clean a pair of 

 pants or coat (any color) that has been considerably soiled, open the jar, and 

 with a stiif spoon loosen up some of the renovating soap and take out % ^^ oz. 

 (a rounding table-spoonful) and dissolve it in 1 qt. of boiling soft water in a 

 porcelain kettle, so as to keep it hot. Now whip and brush the article to be 

 cleaned thoroughly, to remove all the dust; then, with a scouring brush (a. 

 partly worn, consequently stiff, broom brush will do very well), saturate, or wet 

 the soiled spots thoroughly with the hot solution from the kettle; and, as a gen- 

 eral thing, it will be best to saturate the whole garment, else a part will look 

 new (that which is renovated) and the rest will look old or dirty, except in cases 

 of getting spots upon new clothing. After thoroughly wetting the garment with 



