Sugar soap as typically found in Commonwealth countries is a cleaning material of variable composition sold for use on surfaces affected by greasy or tarry deposits which are not easily removed with routine domestic cleaning materials. When in dry powder form it looks like table sugar thus causing the name.
The solution is alkaline and its uses include cleaning paintwork in preparation for repainting.
Famous quotes containing the words sugar and/or soap:
“‘Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare,
‘You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.’”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“Man does not live by soap alone; and hygiene, or even health, is not much good unless you can take a healthy view of it—or, better still, feel a healthy indifference to it.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)