The Vintage Wash House

[aquacycle]

This certainly looks interesting. I'm taking a trip over next weekend as it's very close to where I live.

"A vintage-style shop selling 1940s laundry products has opened in Skipton, West Yorkshire.
And director Linda Peake maintains her basic offerings can match, if not beat, the results achieved by popular laundry detergents of today.
The Vintage Wash House lines its shelves with soap flakes and crystals, white vinegar, bicarbonate of soda, Borax substitute and starch for washing dirty clothes.

Dressed in a classic housewife costume and headscarf, Linda demonstrates the simplicity of vintage laundry methods and has on sale the range of traditional and natural cleaning products, including her very own hand-knitted 100 per cent cotton dishcloths."

Traditional 1940s wash house opens in Skipton

The Vintage Wash House in Skipton, West Yorkshire lines its shelves with soap flakes and crystals, white vinegar and bicarbonate of soda.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[aquacycle]

I'm not quite sure the owner has thought this through. Whilst her shop is something of a novelty and I'm excited to go and have a nosey, these vintage cleaning uses are from the days when one would have to scrub their clothes on a wash board in hot water. This method will likely shred modern clothes as they're not made of the quality they used to be. Modern detergent is also specially forumulated to work in automatic washing machines, which removes the need for scrubbing on a wash board. I wonder how many people will end up with a shredded H&M jumper after visiting this shop.

 

[arbilab]

No expert (a spert, maybe) on early washing products but for example 'washing soda' was just an alkalai attempting to saponify skin oils thus making its own soap. But of course there's a reason we don't just toss laundry into the tub with half a bar of Ivory soap. The most obvious being, what a bar of Ivory deposits on one's bathtub, nasty mix of insoluble fats and minerals (calcium carbonate) from the water.

The magic of engineered detergents is their ability to keep all (most?) of that gook in solution/suspension while the pump runs. If you watch your laundry fairly closely you can see it happen.

 

[gansky1]

Cute shop!

 I likely wouldn't be toting home boxes of soaps and old-fashioned remedies for daily laundry but an entire shop dedicated to laundry?  Knitted dishcloths and other doodads?  Sounds like a fun after-lunch-with-the-girls outing!

 

[aquacycle]

Sounds like a fun after-lunch-with-the-girls outing

The knitted, 100% cotton dishcloths aren't actually worth boasting about. You can buy a pack of 6 hard wearing, 100% cotton knitted dishcloths in the £1 shop. The exciting item for me is the Falcon's Carbonic soap. My Nana used to use it to clean EVERYTHING. She would get down on her hands and knees with a stiff wooden hand brush and scrub her hall and kitchen floors with it. I'll never forget the smell of that stuff.

The Handpicked Hall actually has some really great shops in it, other than this one, so it should be a fun day and I might find some funky christmas gifts for friends and family in the other shops.

 

[vacbear58]

Carbonic?

Chris

Are you talking about your Belfast grandmother?

In that case it would be pronounced "carballic" (with emphasis on the two "a"s as in aaaaaagh rather than eeeeeeh)

Could not resist in indulging our shared ancestry

Al

 

[aquacycle]

Are you talking about your Belfast grandmother?

Hi Al,

Eeee, yer a geg, so ye are!

No, this was my Nana, my Great Grandma on my Dad's side.

I never really spent enough time at my Grandma Megahey's in Belfast to know about her cleaning habbits. We did visit fairly often, but not enough to see her cleaning regime. I think my irish grandparents were both a bit more laid back with the housework as both of them hard worked whilst my Mum was younger, whereas my Nana never did so she really would go to town with the housework, often rather unnecessarilly.

Funnilly enough, if you were cheeky to my Nana, she would usually give you a clout with whatever was in her hand which was, more often that not, a bar of household soap. Looking back, I probably deserved it.

Chris

 

[electron1100]

House Hold Soap

I use it occasionally on coloureds that you cannot use bleach powders on..........seems to work, it was only 89p from Morrisons, another member mentioned using it so I gave it a try so far it has worked on tomato based sauces, maybe its the soap or maybe its the action of rubbing it back and forth ;-)........but for the money I was prepared to give it a try

The red soap brings back memories (I think), was that the one that smelled very fresh and left your skin like a dried up leaf?

 

[launderess]

was that the one that smelled very fresh and left your skin

As one has stated have some Lifebuoy (the original carbolic soap) in my stash and yes the stuff will leave one's skin red raw. No wonder housewives spoke of wash day red hands after using the stuff. Cannot imagine how uncomfortable people must have been bathing with the stuff afterwards. Well there were various homemade and other substances you could use for dry skin, and you certainly would have needed them after bathing with this lot.

 

[launderess]

Using Soap For Laundry

Have said this before and are doing so again, for anyone willing to put up with the bother of doing so, much of today's laundry can be handled with using soap. You'll need (soft) hot water and plenty of it along with various chemicals/substances to treat stains and soils that aren't shifted by soap alone. Phosphates were around since the 1940's (Calgon)and offered a better choice than washing soda or crystals.

Main problem with using pure soap today for laundry is modern washing machines just cannot cope. Unless froth is controlled soap creates to much of it for at least front loaders. You also will need boiling, hot or at least warm water for the washes and hot water for the first two or three rinses. Then there is the fact that soap is made from fats and oils. That residue along with scum will probably rot out modern washing machines in due time. Indeed one is sure the problem so many today have with foul smelling washing machines is a result of using liquid detergents that contain decent amounts of soap. That plus cold or lukewarm washing is a recipe for disaster to my mind.

However being as all this may laundry done in copious amounts of hot water and soaps smells dreamy, especially if line dried. Nothing to date comes close scent wise.

 

[launderess]

Washing Soda Was Just The Commercial Answer

To replace alkali in the from of ashes, plants, ammonia (urine)and other sources that were used in laundering/cleaning textiles and so forth. For hundreds of years housewives or anyone else doing laundry would gather up or purchase ashes that were used for laundry.

Popular methods varied but in France laundry was placed into a barrel or other container that had a small opening on top. Then another container with a screen or what not was placed over this and filled with ashes. Water was slowly poured over the ashes and allowed to filter down and come out of the bottom. This would be repeated over and over again for a day or several at time. The alkali liberated from ashes broke down grease, oils, and soils on the textiles, if not often sooner or later the fibers themselves.

With the invention of the Solvay Process washing soda could be produced cheaply in vast amounts, thus the end of using ashes for most. However the custom would continue among those too poor and or otherwise could not have access to store bought.

Early housekeeping manuals never advised using washing soda or crystals straight for laundry. You diluted the stuff in water and measured out what was needed.

As with ashes and other forms of alkali early laundresses, housekeepers etc... realized what number washing soda could do to laundry. Thus gentler substances such as borax were employed say for baby's laundry.

 

[launderess]

Falcon Soap

You knew it would be here, didn't you?

Pardon Our Interruption...

 

[launderess]

And here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/TRADITIONAL...omeGarden_CLV_Cleaning_CA&hash=item5d45b4bd38

and here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-Bars-of-...athBeauty_BathShowCons_RL&hash=item43bdb56bb3

Such more besides. Had no idea the stuff was so popular.

 

[stan]

The operative word here is

"Household"
Besides the phenol (carbolic) used as a mild antiseptic in the soap, there are the fats used to create the soap in the first place.
The fats used, determines the basic qualities and function of the soap, as well as the fat to lye ratio used in the formulation.
More than likely, this soap has all fat saponified during the manufacturing, as this is not meant for bathing. All fats saponified, also reduces residue. Something very different than a bar of Ivory Soap.
There is also the question as to whether or not the the soap is purified (sometimes called proving)
This would mean, that during manufacturing, a salt solution is added at a specific time, to remove some, if not all of the glycerine from the soap.
So... If all fat was reacted, and then purified, and carbolic acid used as part of the formula, what would be left is a very effective cleanser. More effective than we might think.

 

[launderess]

Well Whatever It Is The Lifebuoy Soap is O-W-T, OUT!

Packed it away and reached for a cube of French savon de Marseille from my stash. Just couldn't stand how drying the Lifebuoy/carbolic soap was to my skin. Days after using and even with body lotions skin was still cracked and dry in places.

Besides didn't quite fancy bathing in Lysol. *LOL* I mean do I offend?