I should of called my cat sooty

@4meAndyou Soot is very hard to remove from hard surfaces even using Dawn dish soap. When the power was out during an ice storm I heated food over the gas fireplace and also used candles to heat a pan of food. Both of those ways caused soot to form over the pans. I was scrubbing and scrubbing to remove the soot and it was getting everywhere. I can’t imagine it would be any easier to scrub off of a cat.

@cherokeepatti It's the only way to remove it from a cat's fur, because most soot contains grease.

I once got online for six hours while burning a huge three wick yankee candle and didn't realize the wicks were all smoking like crazy behind me. When I finally "woke up", I turned around and the walls were BLACK. I had to buy a special "Soot Sponge" to get it all off. The soot sponge picks up the soot off hard surfaces like walls and is washable.

The soot also blackened my custom Levelor blinds in that room, which were made of fabric with texture and cut outs. THOSE had to be soaked in the bathtub with a mixture of water, vinegar, baking soda, and bleach.

@4meAndyou it is a nightmare from fur, it comes off lots with stroking but it just keeps on going, water makes it spread as a slutch.

@4meAndyou I'll leave my cat to soak in baking soda and vinegar 🤣 she'll love me for that.

@Scarfface maybe she is taking a dust bath in someone’s fire pit. There’s a feral cat here that I feed and it has to have dust baths every day when the ground is warm and dry. The other day it was rolling around on the sidewalk, it was a spring-like day and the ground was too damp because we’d had sleet and ice a couple days before.

@cherokeepatti good idea, I might build a sand pit somewhere, maybe she'll use that instead.
The soot seems to be on her front though, I can't work out what she's up to 😂 it might rain soon so hopefully whatever it is will be washed away or maybe it'll be worse next time 😂

@Scarfface I am wondering if she is climbing around inside of a chimney like an outdoor cooker fireplace. Sometimes birds get on top of those chimneys and maybe she wants to try to jump up and catch them.

@Scarfface Dawn dishwashing liquid. You might want to read the article I posted for you.

@cherokeepatti maybe it's something like that.
My main thought is someone is disposing of ashes somewhere she visits.
I hope it stops 🙄

@4meAndyou I had a look but she really doesn't enjoy being handled, she was a stray and she's scared of most unusual things.

@Scarfface My cat was a stray, also. VERY skittish and doesn't like to be picked up or held. I thought that if you had already tried washing her with water, you could just add a bit of Dawn to that, and make the water more effective. It takes oil from oils slicks off of baby ducklings.

@4meAndyou the best I could do was with a wet cloth, nearly lost a limb 😂

@Scarfface Try wrapping her in a towel first. That's what they do at the vets...😉