Chinese Wash

Freshly Mixed Chinese Wash

Chinese Wash is the name of a cleaning product, originally produced as "Young's Chinese Wash." It quickly earned a reputation among hoodoofolk as an excellent cleanser, sharing many of its essential oils with an oil well-known for its cleansing and purification properties: the New Orleans formula called Van Van Oil.

Traditionally, when you first get a bottle of Chinese Wash, you're supposed to add seven broom straws snipped from your own home broom, the idea being those straws will impart the purpose they've been put to the wash. That is, you've used the broom to clean your house, so some of that "cleaning mojo" will come along with them, fixing that bottle of Chinese Wash with the purpose of cleaning your home.

Add between one and three tablespoons of Chinese Wash to your mop water before mopping, and mop your home from top floor to bottom, back of the house to front. Then, when you're done, throw that water out the front door or into the front lawn, throwing it towards the East when possible.

If you'd like a little strengthening to it, you can add a couple drops of Cast Off Evil or Van Van Oil to the bucket of mop water. Alternately, you can add other oils to it to bring the virtues of those oils into your home: Love-Drawing, Money-Drawing, Healing, whatever you like.

Lot of folks don't use mop buckets these days, so use Chinese Wash like any floor-cleansing product. Add a little of it to spray bottles, for instance, if you use those Swiffer-style cleaners, or to lightly spray your carpet. You can also add a little to a bowl of hot water, and use that with a cloth or sponge to wipe down walls, window sills, baseboards and the like.

Warning: There are oils in Chinese Wash that can stain carpets or walls, so please test it out first.