Anyone Seen These Unilever Products? And Muslin Sheets, Too...

[angus]

Yesterday, while shopping at the Compare Supermarket on East Main Street in Bridgeport, spotted some bags of Rinso which appear to be from Unilever Guatemala, Loaded with STPP and had a rather strong citrus- sweet fragrance. Does a nice job but quite sudsy and dosing is tricky since I don't read Spanish.

Another one I am seeing for the first time is Unox - also from Unilever, but I believe from El Salvador. Also loaded with STPP but seems much less foamy- just had a thin, solid layer of suds on top of the water. Has a sweet, but pleasant fragrance, not quite vintage, but the clothes didn't reek of scent after drying. Did a fantastic job on some vintage white Pequot muslin sheets I picked up at an estate sale yesterday as well. Picked up some muslins with a Sears "Harmony House" label and some matching pillow cases.
Did a nice long hot water agitated soak, then drained, rinsed and rewashed and bleached in hot water, rinsed twice and blued in final rinse. Hung to dry and better than new. Working on the pillow cases now - they will need to be boiled - they could be just a bit whiter.

Laundress, thanks for the tip of searching for vintage muslin sheets at estate sales. This is the second time in a month that I have found some sturdy muslins. The first batch was pretty bad with lots of rust stains. Took the better part of a day to get them de-stained and where they needed to be, but with an overnight hot soak, some rust remover and a couple of paste applications of Oxi-Clean (yes it is good for some things), and a final hot wash with plenty of STPP and Clorox, the stains were banished.

Have used them since and they are glorious to sleep on when fresh and crisp from the line...

 

[yogitunes]

stupid question...what is STPP?

 

[davek]

Sodium tripolyphosphate

The stuff that laundry detergent used to have about 15% of and which dishwashing detergent used to be absolutely full of. It made it work a lot better, but there is plenty of movement to ban it. Laundry soap usually has none now, and dish detergent is down to less than 10%. It's banned in dish products in parts of the Pacific northwest, and there are people who actually smuggle the regular kind in because the phospate-free versions are so worthless.

There are people here who frequently mention adding STPP to something to make it better, and it surely does. That should probably only be done for extreme circumstances. All the same, it might be a good idea to buy some pure STPP to add to stuff when the manufacturers no longer include any.

 

[dixieland]

I have lots of Unox. I believe it is manufactured in El Salvador but I bought it in Costa Rica. It has a faint bubble gum smell to me. I guess it is ok - I don't use it often though.

 

[launderess]

Angus

T'wern't nothing. You are most welcome!

Vintage heavy muslin sheets and pillow slips, you can't fail can you? Hot water washing, chlorine bleaching and hot ironing and the things keep on keeping on for ages, one simply cannot kill them.

Now if you REALLY want a treat, sprinkle and allow those sheets or at least pillow slips to damped evenly after line drying, then iron them with a good hot iron. You'll be in heaven, I'm telling you, HEAVEN!

Have one or two, or even more boxes of Pequot muslin sheets and pillow slips stored away, really must get them out and restore them either for use or to sell.

Launderess

 

[washmeup]

Unilever

I worked for Unilever for fourteen years as the Vice President of Erno Laszlo. We were always changing product ingrediants for the US market do to the regulations within the US market. It is a shame because the consumer lost out in the long run on some products that were really great at one time but they banned certain chemicals and it changed the performance of the product.

 

[autowasherfreak]

Where do you guys buy STPP?

 

[angus]

STPP is for sale on line at thechemistrystore.com. I buy it in 25lb pails.

 

[sudsmaster]

The usual concentration of STPP in laundry detergent was about 30% by weight. More than that did not add appreciably to the cleaning ability. Less was sub-optimal. The rest is sodium carbonate, filler, surfactant, etc. Be careful when evaluating the amounts of STPP added to products. Modern labeling only lists the phosphorus content, not the STPP content, which is more, since STPP has sodium, hydrogen, and oxygen, in addition to phosphorus. Without looking up the atomic weights and molecular formula, I'd guess that 30% STPP is probably around 15% phosphorus. But don't quote me on that ;-)