Ingemar you are so not alone !
I know quite a few people besides myself who still do boilwashes on a regular basis. Some of my friends and family say 60° is plenty enough for everything, but these are most often the ones with the dingy whites and an endless supply of laundry additives like oxybleaches and disinfectants.
Actually the few FL washers that could do a real boil vanished in the 1960s I think. But in many languages the washer still says "Kochwäsche" or "Bollitura" for the hottest possible cycle. And even a dumbed down 90° is still very close to the boiling point.
In Germany the argument about proper laundry temperatures is going on since the energy crisis in the early 70s and did not become better in the late 80s when we became all green and enviromentally concious and is still discussed very emotionally today sometimes. Thank God all our washers still offer the super hot temperature and 50 cents of electricity costs for a 5kg load won`t ruin anybody financially.
I sometimes seriously wonder why P&G (Ariel) tried so early to Americanize our washing habits. Clementine already tried to convince us in the 1960s to skip the prewash and turn down to 60°.
The more I think about it the more I suspect they just wanted us to get hooked up as soon as possible to Pampers, Bounty, Alldays pantyliners and stuff like that.
Of course in an American toploader any temp above 140°F would do more harm than good, but with a cold or warm start in a frontloader the hotter the better is still true if the fabric can take it.
@ Launderess
I totally agree with you what you said about ironing but unfortunally so many of us don`t bother with ironing at all.
That explains why commercial laundry services often get away with low washing temps and yet can deliver good hygiene levels.
I know quite a few people besides myself who still do boilwashes on a regular basis. Some of my friends and family say 60° is plenty enough for everything, but these are most often the ones with the dingy whites and an endless supply of laundry additives like oxybleaches and disinfectants.
Actually the few FL washers that could do a real boil vanished in the 1960s I think. But in many languages the washer still says "Kochwäsche" or "Bollitura" for the hottest possible cycle. And even a dumbed down 90° is still very close to the boiling point.
In Germany the argument about proper laundry temperatures is going on since the energy crisis in the early 70s and did not become better in the late 80s when we became all green and enviromentally concious and is still discussed very emotionally today sometimes. Thank God all our washers still offer the super hot temperature and 50 cents of electricity costs for a 5kg load won`t ruin anybody financially.
I sometimes seriously wonder why P&G (Ariel) tried so early to Americanize our washing habits. Clementine already tried to convince us in the 1960s to skip the prewash and turn down to 60°.
The more I think about it the more I suspect they just wanted us to get hooked up as soon as possible to Pampers, Bounty, Alldays pantyliners and stuff like that.
Of course in an American toploader any temp above 140°F would do more harm than good, but with a cold or warm start in a frontloader the hotter the better is still true if the fabric can take it.
@ Launderess
I totally agree with you what you said about ironing but unfortunally so many of us don`t bother with ironing at all.
That explains why commercial laundry services often get away with low washing temps and yet can deliver good hygiene levels.
)
