Kitten covered in SOOT!

My 8 week old kitty, Hans, rolled around in an old fireplace. I bathed him with Dawn dish soap. Twice. He is still stained a horrible grey/black color. How long until he is back to his normal peach shade?

Once upon a time I adopted from a shelter what appeared to be a cream or beige colored Persian with very light eyes. She had been found with her fur one solid mat, so she must have been out on her own for at least a week or two. How she survived in the urban jungle of what is Orange County in Southern California is a mystery, She had been dematted at the shelter and had been found already spayed. When I took her home I decided to give her a bath as what was was left of her fur felt sort of greasy. The bathtub ended up with brownish water in it. Next day the cat still felt greasy so decided to give it another bath, bathwater was again brownish and the cat was lighter in color but still felt greasy. I gave this cat a bath (with people shampoo!!!) every day for 6 days straight. She loved the hair dryer!!!! At the end of the week this cat was WHITE!!! with the slightest grey points and palest blue eyes.. What I has was a lilac point Himalayan cat! Giving it a bath every day for a week obviously did not hurt it one bit and using the people shampoo probably speeded up the cleaning although once she was clean I used cat shampoo and she still got a bath once a week which she loved so obviously she was used to getting bath and being dried with a hair dryer. She was with me quite a few years before she passed, I named her Kuniang, a *******isation of  "Little Girl" in Chinese.
here she is with her fur all grown out and licking her chops, you can see how pale her eyes were


she was quite small although she was fully grown, due to her short nose she made a snorting noise a lot of the time

When I've had to give multiple baths, I use baby shampoo. It's more gentle on their skin and leaves their fur soft. I had one I had to bathe daily for about a week because he didn't know how to clean himself and was a stinky mess. Baby shampoo worked wonders and didn't dry out his skin like the other shampoos.

Ditto on the baby shampoo.

My cat gets baths 3x weekly for his skin condition.

Sarah Ann said:

Ditto on the baby shampoo.

My cat gets baths 3x weekly for his skin condition.

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My sister is the one who told me about it. She has an older cat with a skin problem and she has to be bathed several times a week.

I would not usually use people shampoo on any cat but this one was so dirty I needed something that would really cut through the filth and people shampoo did it,  and even then it took 6 washings.  I used baby shampoo instead of shampoo meant for cats which I used thereafter. She was so dirty that when I first noticed the points I thought this was just more dirt and really scrubbed her ears, face, paws and tail (without success needless to say). Not until day 4 did I realize that she had points and not just extra dirt. As you can see from the pics she turned out beautiful once she was clean. 

segelkatt said:

 
I would not usually use people shampoo on any cat but this one was so dirty I needed something that would really cut through the filth and people shampoo did it,  and even then it took 6 washings.  I used baby shampoo instead of shampoo meant for cats which I used thereafter. She was so dirty that when I first noticed the points I thought this was just more dirt and really scrubbed her ears, face, paws and tail (without success needless to say). Not until day 4 did I realize that she had points and not just extra dirt. As you can see from the pics she turned out beautiful once she was clean. 

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I did that to a white kitten I that showed up at my house (see post about him being a stinky mess). He had a grayish blotch on his head between his ears. I scrubbed and scrubbed but it wouldn't come off....I figured he got under one of the cars..

LOL my BF at the time told me when he got home that it was just part of his color....It eventually faded.

I don't have any answers for you but in my distant memory I can think of another member who has had a similar kind of experience with one of her white cats.   Hopefully @Cassiopea  will see this post and offer some advice if she had any success with cleaning her kitty's lovely fur.  

I had that with my dog. He was a throw away aged 6 weeks and a dark tan. I bathed him three times with doggy shampoo, dried him with the hair dryer and this gorgeous light tan fluffy baby emerged. I let him loone. He ran to my late lotto who rubbed nosea with him then he turned to my late little gentle who didn't hiss. She gave a might spit at him. How did she get her name!!!!!

I have a kitten who is white and loves to go into the basement and go into the ceiling. When she comes out she is all grey and gross. I've also tried giving her baths but it seemed to not work. She grooms herself and after a few days she is back to her normal self, then repeats the process lol. I think you just have to let your cat groom it out as long as you feel you've gotten the majority of the soot off.

why not just keep the cat out of the basement and other places you don't want her to be? That would be much easier.

My white cat was dusted with soot when we cleaned out a chimney. I use Tropiclean White Cat Shampoo. It works wonders on a white cat. I had to wash, rinse and blow dry him twice to get it all out.

I've only ever had to wash bottoms and tails.

Stewball said:

I've only ever had to wash bottoms and tails.

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When you've got a longhaired cat you pretty much have to give them a bath every so often, they cannot clean all that fur by themselves and it starts to smell a little after a while. So if you want to keep your cat smelling sweet you give it a bath. Most of them were taught from babyhood to take a bath and so don't mind, and most of them love the hair dryer. You just have to be sure to comb them beforehand as any knots or heaven forbid mats, wlll get so tight once they get wet that you will never get them out and they have to be cut off. So apart from leaving hair all over the place you also have to make sure to diligently comb, not brush your longhaired cat  every day although some breeds don't have the undercoat that snarls like Maine Coons and Birmans so that you have to comb them only once in a while, just check for little mats in places like under the chin and in the arm pits and get rid of them before they get worse. Speaking from experience: I have had Persians, Himalayans, Birmans and Maine Coons besides moggies with long and medium hair, currently have a Persian and a Birman and a DSH while fostering a DMH while recently have re-homed a Maine Coon.

MServant: obviously your Mouse, being a Russian Blue, is a shorthaired cat so you would not know about the trials and tribulations of being the caretaker of a longhaired cat. The mats these cats develop in a very short time are unbelievable. A Persian or a Himalayan must be combed every day because just missing one day will already cause knots and the cat will tell you about it when you get back to combing the second or third day. Any more days and you won't be able to get the knots out and every day thereafter it gets worse until the whole body is a solid mat which need to be cut off. Just consider a human child with curly longish hair: without combing hair every day there will be snarls and then tears when it comes to combing. Cream rinse will take the snarls out of human hair but not out of cat hair (I tried!), anything wet will just turn the fur into felt. That's why you will hear of longhaired getting a shave, usually into a "lion cut", which means a shave all over the body but leaving a ruff and a tuft at the end of the tail, the legs and head don't usually get mats so that is left alone. The cat then looks like a miniature male lion. Anyone considering getting one of these longhaired cats should consider if they want to go through all that every day. 

Thank you @segelkatt  ,  I always knew I should not attempt to parent a longhair;  now I know why!       I can see a poor, bird's nest styled kitty before me, being taken in to care by a vet.   I would be hopeless with all the grooming required and have great admiration for people who put in the hours required.    And that was before I knew it was a daily task!   Mouse needs no grooming at all so I have my purrfect match here. 

My tabbies used to need a weekly brush to remove dander (well one of them daily but more to avoid her depositing huge wads of fur everywhere than any knotting) and I always thought that would be what would keep a longhair neat.   It has only been since coming to TCS that I have learned more about the knots and soiling that happen with so many cats.  I previously thought the Lioncut was some silly thing people did who would prefer to have a Poodle than a cat, but now I know better.  

I look forward to learning more about how to regain the beautiful gleaming white of clean fur as I know it is something that comes up quite regularly for members, mostly with staining around eyes though soot rolling has also come up before (with one of Cassiopea's lovely cats).   I love white cats and if my dreams came true I would find myself living with a blue cat, black cat and a white one.  

MServant said:

 
Thank you @segelkatt  ,  I always knew I should not attempt to parent a longhair;  now I know why!  

    I can see a poor, bird's nest styled kitty before me, being taken in to care by a vet.   I would be hopeless with all the grooming required and have great admiration for people who put in the hours required.    And that was before I knew it was a daily task!   Mouse needs no grooming at all so I have my purrfect match here. 

My tabbies used to need a weekly brush to remove dander (well one of them daily but more to avoid her depositing huge wads of fur everywhere than any knotting) and I always thought that would be what would keep a longhair neat.   It has only been since coming to TCS that I have learned more about the knots and soiling that happen with so many cats.  I previously thought the Lioncut was some silly thing people did who would prefer to have a Poodle than a cat, but now I know better.  

I look forward to learning more about how to regain the beautiful gleaming white of clean fur as I know it is something that comes up quite regularly for members, mostly with staining around eyes though soot rolling has also come up before (with one of Cassiopea's lovely cats).   I love white cats and if my dreams came true I would find myself living with a blue cat, black cat and a white one.

 

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There is something called "Angel Eyes" that you put in the food of light-colored cats (and dogs too) which allegedly keeps the tears which stain the fur around the eyes from oxidizing and thus from turning brown and nasty looking. Since I wash my Persian's face every day and sometimes twice I have not had the need to use that but it may be helpful to someone else. 

White cats also have a problem particular to them : deafness. Unless the cat has had some color patch while very young you run the risk of having a deaf cat. While this will not bother the cat, particularly if it is an indoor cat, you will not have the pleasure (or pain) of your cat running to you upon hearing the can opener, or upon waiting for you at the door because it heard the car door slam announcing your arrival or turning its head when you call it, much less coming to you when called. They do purr although I have never heard a deaf cat vocalizing to a human, obviously because they can't hear the human voice.

@segelkatt   The first all white cat I met was at the home of an elderly couple I was doing some work for.  The cat was about 6 years old and very pretty, but Ugh she was noisy!!!   She meowled and meowled almost the whole time, and no volume control.  I figure she could feel vibration but as she didn't hear she had no idea how loud she was.   LoL.   The couple were amazing with her and took great care to make sure she didn't get out by accident as they lived beside a very busy road.

@lilla  How is Hans doing?  Has he returned to his lovely clean fur colour, and even more importantly, has he recovered from having his bath?