Lestoil Heavy Duty Multi-Purpose Cleanser 28 oz

So here I am, with my just opened bottle of Malbec, two days after Thanksgiving and one day after Black Friday, apparently with nothing better to do than to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly of this Lestoil stuff. Odds are, you are reading the comments because you want to know how effective this stuff is and wondering will it remove whatever mess you've gotten yourself into. Well, let me tell you.... 1. This stuff definitely WORKS. I have attached some photos for you so you can be reassured that I am not telling tall tales. My husband is an industrial pump machinist/mechanic/technician and he sees the worst of the worst. Human waste, the sludge at cheese processing plants, waste water, potato processing plants...you name it. He removes the pumps, rebuilds them, reinstalls them and he and his clothes come home FILTHY. It was after one very long, profanity-filled text message that I sent to him lamenting how I have spent an ungodly amount of wasted hours of my life trying to get these gross stains out of his clothing, and basically ranting that his employer does not provide uniforms for his job (leaving me the task of performing miracles each week to get him ready and presentable for work.) I had tried everything--EVERRRRRYTHIIIIING--to get stains out of his clothing. Vinegar, dish soap, Zote soap bars, Pine Sol, washing soda, Borax, Spray 'n Wash, Shout, Biz, hydrogen peroxide, Oxi-Clean...I mean it when I say I ran the gamut of options available for getting oily stains out of clothing. Someone mentioned this Lestoil product in a comment section of a laundry cleaning video on YouTube, and when I read it I was intrigued. Yes....yes, you read that right. Things were getting so bad with my hatred for my husband's dirty laundry that I was resorting to watching laundry cleaning videos at 2 a.m. in bed. I REALLY needed a solution, and we were running out of bottles of wine. The first time I used it, I simply poured the liquid right out of the bottle all over the stains. I probably wasted at least one quarter of the bottle doing it this way. Plus, I had it all over my hands and everywhere else and it REEKED of chemicals. So the next time, I got smart and poured this stuff into the tiniest spray bottle I could find (I think it is an old purse/travel spray bottle from Bath & Body Works.) On the next round of laundry I used the little spray bottle to simply target the sections that had major stains, and probably saved 90% of the product doing it this way. 2. ODOR ALERT. I must warn you. For those out there with super sensitive noses like mine, this stuff smells HORRIBLE (to me, anyway.) I have Lyme Disease and one of the symptoms of this wretched illness is an incredibly increased sense of smell, so many, many scents are intolerable to me. Let me tell you folks, I have to spray this stuff outside. The first time I used it, I tried laying all the clothing in the bathtub and letting the solution soak for an hour or so, but the smell.......my good Lord. It was what I imagine walking into a gas chamber would be like, every time I opened the door. The chemical smell was so incredibly strong that it made by lungs and my eyes burn. We have four pets and I was very concerned for their welfare (cats' sense of smell is 14x stronger than humans, and dogs are up there, too) and I did not want their tiny noses suffering from smelling this stuff. Trust me. Use your exhaust fan, open the windows, let your clothing soak outside. It smells THAT badly. It's like....respiratory cancer smell in a bottle. In fact, I get pissed off every time I have to use this stuff simply because I hate the smell so darn much. So that's that. It really works, and, it reeks like industrial cleaner. For those who are wondering, I have the "fresh" scent, I think (the bottle does not indicate.) I tried seeking out the "unscented" version, which is apparently a thing, but it is nowhere to found other than on the black market for the cost of blood diamonds. I must also mention, it does a great job of removing oily stains from cooking, like olive oil, butter, bacon grease, etc. My boobs are size 32DDD (God given, and I'm stuck with 'em) and like the Siberian Shelf in the Arctic those things catch every single morsel of food, tasty sauce, or drink that drop from my lips. All of my shirts and sweatshirts have a stupid line of oil stains right across my chest (I am messy), but after a little spritz of this Lestoil stuff the stains be no more. It is truly amazing! I just wish it smelled better. Imagine if it smelled like warm vanilla, or chocolate chip cookies, or freesia flowers...or the delights of lemons, apples & mint, cucumber melon, or even freshly brewed coffee. Heck, I would take the smell of a hickory burning fireplace or even that gas station smell that I weirdly loved as a kid over the way this cleaner smells right now. So, that's the story folks. It really works and it really stinks. I guess that one sentence could have been my entire review.

As a child, I remember my mother always kept a bottle of Lestoil by the utility sink in the basement. I don’t know what she used it for, but I always associated it with a big mess and a lot of yelling. As a teen, I discovered the ease with which Lestoil removed engine grease from auto parts, my clothes and skin. And as a young adult entering the workforce, I used it to remove an ink stain from a pen that had burst in the pocket of one of my favorite white dress shirts. The stain was only a couple of hours old, but all it took to completely eradicate it was treating it with a little Lestoil, rinsing, then laundering it with Tide. The stuff was magic – I remember visualizing how it went to work chopping up the bits of ink and carrying them away and there was absolutely no trace of ink left by the time the shirt was washed. Sure it smelt a little bit like kerosene and dried your skin out, but what a small price to pay for the items it saved and the ease with which it worked. Then it disappeared for some reason. In found myself periodically confronted with a cleaning chore that the cleaners currently available handled poorly and wishing for a bottle of Lestoil to make it easier. The company was bought out by the Clorox Company and Lestoil is currently only produced for Walmart stores in Puerto Rico, for some reason. I snatched a bottle immediately when an Amazon search turned up a result and eagerly awaited it. I can’t say for sure of the formula is the same or if Clorox has tampered with it – the smell is pretty much the same, perhaps a bit milder and I did not have exactly the same success with several items, although it performed better than any currently in my arsenal of cleaning products. I first treated a raw wood table with several stains from oil-based paint that have had ample time to set and cure. After letting it sit on the stains full-strength for ten minutes, I was able to remove the paint with nothing more than a wet sponge. Then I used it to soak some vinyl mini blinds with oil paint splatters diluted and let the blinds sit in the diluted solution overnight. I would say about 75 percent of the paint was automatically gone by morning. About half od what was left easily sponged off. I don’t know for sure if the rest would have come off easily with a brush and some hot water but I was in too much of a hurry. So I am happy with this purchase and it is as good as I’m going to find now, but I plan on keeping a bottle on hand at all times, because nothing cuts through ink, grease, paint and other nightmares better or more safely.

I have been using Lestoil for years, cleans everything. It’s my go to cleaner since I use it inside as well as outside. The strength of this product is unreal, it cleaned my outdoor porch railings with just one wipe and when I hosed it off my railings were a bright white and very clean. I personally love the clean fresh scent. It’s definitely a great value since you can dilute a very small amount of cleaner and it goes a long way. Once you try this cleaner, it will become your go to heavy duty cleaner.

I have ruined so many clothes with oil stains in the past. Something spills or splashes while and it s game over. I’ve even ruined outfits trying out different online hacks trying to get rid of the stains. But this is great! Just put a dab of it on the stain and rub it in about 15-20 min before you do wash and wash on the hottest cycle. It’s worked every time for me. Do be careful though not to use to much as the smell will REALLY stick onto the clothes if you do. I only made that mistake once and had to rewash all my clothes like 4 times to get the smell out. Just try to use as little as you can while getting the whole stain. I try to use a little tooth brush and pour the liquid into a little bowl then dunk the tooth brush in it to pick up a little and go back and forth like that. Overall though I would 100% purchase again just because of how well it gets rid of oil stains on clothing.

I was spraying Dawn Powerwash foam on my clothes to remove grease. It works pretty well if you leave it long enough, but it's expensive, and I go through a bottle in no time. Before that, I used Dawn dish soap, putting little dots on the grease spots. Too time-consuming, and I always missed some of the spots. After Googling "are there any products that will take grease stains out of clothes?" this one came up. The price was reasonable. It's a big bottle. I read that you have to be careful using it in a front loader. Never put it in the dispenser, and be careful how much you use if you put it in the drum. (no more than 1/4 cup). It's best to spot the clothes, it said. So, I put some in a spray bottle and sprayed it on several shirts with grease spots all over the front, rolled them up and let them sit for a while before washing. One of the shirts was an old sweatshirt of my husband's, which he wears while cooking, that had old, set in grease spots all over it that hadn't come out after being washed. Every spot was gone after using this stuff! I'm happy to report that I finally found something that's affordable and actually works great! Grease spots,...GONE!! Does it smell? Yes. I always hold my breath when spraying any chemical and walk away as soon as I'm done, then wait until the air settles. I don't care if it smells, IT WORKS! After drying, the clothes do not smell. You can always run an extra rinse, depending on how well your machine rinses clothes. Highly recommended!

Lestoil is one of those cleaners you buy for performance, not the scent. The smell is honestly awful—strong and gas-like, definitely not something you want lingering in the house. That said, it really works. I’ve used it mostly for laundry, and it’s been amazing at getting out tough oil and grease stains that nothing else could touch. I usually apply a small amount directly to the stain before washing, rub it in and it lifts it right out—even on older spots. The smell does wash out with the laundry, thankfully, but I always make sure to store the bottle tightly sealed and away from living areas.

Love to clean with this, works really well

Removes Stains. Use on small washable mats in my kitchen, Just apply, rub stain and hose off. Also great on tough stains on clothing. Love this product.