Being a good solvent for many materials (such as grease and tar), carbon tetrachloride was widely used as a cleaning fluid for nearly 70 years. It is nonflammable and nonexplosive and did not leave any odour on the cleaned material, unlike gasoline, which was also used for cleaning at the time. It was used as a "safe" alternative to gasoline. It was first marketed as Katharin, in 1890 or 1892 and as Benzinoform later.
Carbon tetrachloride was the first chlorinated solvent to be used in dry-cleaning and was used until the 1950s. It had the downsides of being corrosive to the dry-cleaning equipment and causing illness among dry-cleaning operators, and was replaced by trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene and methyl chloroform (trichloroethane).
Carbon tetrachloride was also used as an alternative to petrol (gasoline) in dry shampoos, from the beginning of 1903 to the 1930s. Several women had fainted from its fumes during the hair wash in barber shops, the hairdressers often used electric fans to blow the fumes away. In 1909, a baronet's daughter, Helenora Elphinstone-Dalrymple (aged 29), died after having her hair shampooed with carbon tetrachloride.
It is assumed that carbon tetrachloride was still used as a dry cleaning solvent in North Korea as of 2006.