Soap Free Cleaners

I had to clean a couple of store fronts last night and thought that I would experiment with the "soap-free" type of cleaners. In this case, it was "Soap Free".

Interesting stuff. It is carbonated and gives your pre-spray a slight fizz when you apply it....not sure if that really does much for cleaning, but it looked impressive to people passing by. It only gave off a sort of ozone smell which was a pleasant change as well.

I power brushed it with a crb machine and then let it dwell for about 10 minutes. Using a 12 flow wand, it seemed to clean pretty well in all areas except the worst of the traffic lanes, where it lacked some muscle, but that was expected.

I cleaned the other entrance using my normal commercial mix of "Extreme Clean" boosted with "OSR" and then compared the two once dried.

The Soap Free side looked clean, but a little inconsistent in appearance. Might just be the flooring as it is like a roller coaster in some areas, but there was a blotchiness to it. The good part was that it had zero scent and felt good to the touch...almost squeaky in fact on the black high traffic carpet.

The Extreme / OSR side was more consistent, but did leave a slight chemical odor to it. Pick your poison I guess, but the Soap Free certainly was far less expensive to use and did a pretty good job considering this really isn't the ideal location to use such a product.

I think I will try out the Procyon on tomorrow's residential job and then finish with a side by side of the 2 products. One thing is certain, if you are cleaning light to medium soil, this product can get it done quietly without odor or residue.

So far, I like it. Hope Procyon turns out to be the same or even better.

I wonder how the xtreme would have performed with out the osr boost. Don't quote me but I don't think you're supposed to boost the proycon xtreme with anything.

I think for store fronts proycons All Purpose Degreaser or Tile and grout cleaner might have been a better choice.

I must have confused you a little, I was not using Procyon Xtreme....I was using Pro's Choice Extreme Clean with the OSR.

I would also agree on the All Purpose Degreaser for those store fronts....especially since they just black topped the parking lot.

Is this proycons stuff, something you guys buy at HD?

I haven't purchased any of the Proycons, just have the sample pack, but I don't think it is sold in those centers.

The "Soap Free" is from Masterblend. I want to just compare the different detergent-free products out there to include Pro's Choice version as well.

I am officially off the "soap free" bandwagon.

I cleaned a house with a salt/pepper beige nylon carpet today. Very minimal soil load with some spots and what looked to be coffee stains by the recliner.

I went with "Soap Free" by Masterblend (with a CRB scrub)after having decent results the night prior. Halfway through the room, it was clearly not cleaning very well. The spots required treatment separately and the over-all appearance wasn't consistent.

This was the second time that I tried it and the second time I saw an inconsistent appearance after cleaning. It seemed to be really sensitive to your spray pattern when applying it as I could clearly see where I over-lapped the spray fan.

It might just take some more trigger time to get a better result with this product, but there is another flaw to this product and probably to other soap-free products. That flaw may be that it is corn-based.

After running my hands over the wet carpet after cleaning, there was a distinct smell of corn. I know that some cleaners are soy based, but I suspect that this one is corn based, which could be a problem if you run into a customer with a corn allergy.

It sounds trivial, but would you ever clean a house with a cleaner based on peanuts in this day and age? These healthy alternative cleaners might actually be setting us up for other problems.

I still haven't tested the Procyon yet, but it does state that it is gluten free.....so is this a corn based cleaner too? I will test it out, but not having a local source for it, it would have to be a very good and versatile cleaner for me to fall in love with it.

I thought somebody said procyon it was sodium based. It sure tasted salty when I confused it with water.

Procyon might be, I have to try it and find out. I'm not going to say that they are all the same, but each "soap free" product labels all seem to read the same regardless of manufacturer.

I should have another try at it tomorrow...will be using procyon then.

I dont know anything about the masterblend but I can tell you that company is on the verge of tanking from what I have heard.


I havent really found equipment manufacturers etc to really be the best producers of chemicals, seems more like a side thing they do so they can get you on their program after selling you a TM.


I think youll like procyon extreme mil, youll still need a bio spotter for urine etc... it will handle light urine.

but the nice thing is you dont need a whole bottle of peroxide to get that brightening effect on the light carpets


of course supply is a crucial part, shipping on anything liquid gets expensive which is why we use regular procyon powder for about 90% of jobs, then extreme for the really dirty ones..

I agree AC, I have not been happy with TM builder's chemical lines over the years.

I will give Procyon a fair trial and see how it goes.

I used Soap Free for about two years - always with the RX 20 - and it worked well. Switched to Procyon and am very happy with it.

I haven't had a chance to run the Procyon yet, but I'm keeping my mind open.

The powder is awsome, its super cost effective no odor and mixes very well with warm or hot water


I use it standalone all the time, or boost with miracle then it really is a knock out punch

I just ordered a case and im going through it like butter. I noticed they have an upholdersty cleaner too. I've been using xtreme

Mo wrote:I just ordered a case and im going through it like butter. I noticed they have an upholdersty cleaner too. I've been using xtreme

Is that a good thing as in you really like it or a bad thing as it takes a lot to get results?

I should probably not be using the Xtreme on Upholstery

This is an old thread, but it needed some updating.

Looking back on those early trials, the soap free product I was using was not corn-based, but the carpet was, hence the smell.

Since those days, I have gone through a case of Procyon Plus and ordered a second case last week. It has been doing very well on both the corn-fiber carpets as well as most upholstery that I have tried it on.

If there is an odor issue, I add 1-1.5 scoops of OSR....any more than that and your HF sprayer will become a volcano. Most of the time, I just run it straight with REALLY hot water and a straight water rinse.

I still wish it had a slight color to it so you could make sure it was actually spraying, but maybe that will happen in the future.

My position hasn't changed on this, I still think Procyon does almost zero cleaning regarding appearance, and we cleaners know appearance is number one on the list of customer's expectations.
I went back and forth between Prochem power burst and a bunch of other cleaning products over the years, and always end up using power burst, even when I switched to power strike ( which is also prochem products ), I actually use power strike for almost a year before I decided to go back to power burst, it's just a great pre spray in my book in eliminating spot cleaning as much as possible, I just hate to have to stop wanding and have to spray spots ( if I have to work by myself ). It helps save a few minutes from each job from spotting. With Procyon I have to constantly spot cleaning each and every spot, nothing comes out with pre spray plus the soil areas just become dull, frustrating.