Just thought I would throw this in here because I like the colour. There was no machine for washing clothes in the places we stayed in Grenada, and at some stage it became obvious that Mr B had packed in anticipation of being able to wash (or have me wash) for reuse some of the garments he had splashed his food onto.
The shop next door had these bars of blue soap, and the apartment had an orange plastic wash basin.
I recall 'blue bags' sitting on the wooden windowsill of our washhouse at the cottage we lived in when I was about 5. I have no idea what was in blue bags, but like the purple rinse that is supposed to take yellowing out of white hair like mine, the blue got dunked in the wash water for the whites - AND was hauled out and applied to me whenever (and wherever) I got a bee-sting. (I used to suffer loads from being stung, and don't believe for a second that the blue bag made a bean of difference. Mum believed in it. It took until I was an adult to get my mother to acknowledge the severity of my reactions to bee stings. Fortunately I was not anaphylactic; I'm sure she might have just told me to stop messing about.)
Anyway the blue soap didn't deal with sunscreen stains on white tee-shirts any better than any other washing product I have tried for getting sunscreen stain off whites - so his white shirts went in the rag bag when we got home.
You intrigued me so I did some goggling...
ReplyDeleteThe little blue bag was stirred around in the final rinse water on washday. It disguised any hint of yellow and helped the household linen look whiter than white. The main ingredients were synthetic ultramarine and baking soda, and the original "squares" weighed an ounce and cost 1 penny
So presumably had as much effect on my bee sting as baking soda would have had. I'm guessing the blue bit did nothing. I wonder if they put ultramarine in the soap. (BTW ours were round and tied up in a little muslin bag.)
DeleteHari Om
ReplyDeleteWhat? No magic bleaching effect? Dang! Pretty picture though 😊 YAM xx
There seems to be no magic that works on sunscreen stains.
DeleteIce is good for bee stings.
ReplyDeleteNot getting stung in the first place is also good. I need mega doses of anti-histamines.
DeleteLovely bright photograph. My mother always used blue bags on my white school blouses - they had a definite blue tint to them, but I liked that.
ReplyDelete(I keep threatening to make a large bib for my husband!)
🤣🤣🤣 wait for tomorrow's post. I have some denim left over from a bib project.... you can have it if you like - enough to make an apron sized bib!
Deleteit is a nice blue, I think here it was call bluing, but I don't remember seeing anyone use it. baking soda then and now was/is used on all kinds of things. just yesterday sprinkled it about on the carpet for odor control then researched afterwards and it said it will RUIN a vacuum, and will rot the fibers of the carpet if used over and over... oh well
ReplyDeleteOops i use baking soda on our carpet too.
DeleteThat sounds exactly like the blue bags my mother used. Including on midge bites! I expect the color was supposed to have medical value.
ReplyDeleteYes, I remember getting rubbed with blue bag when I was stung aged about 4 or 5. Can't remember whether it helped, or whether it was bee or wasp. My mother's attitude was the same as yours.
ReplyDeleteI remember the blue bag my mother used to wash my brothers nappies, Oh so long ago
ReplyDeleteOn a side note. On our honeymoon. Hubby only packed one pair of underwear. So each night I had to wash the one he wasn’t wearing and hang them to dry for the next day.
Reality screamed into my life from day one!
I've never hard of the blue bag, I wonder if it's similar to nappy san that we have here? But I never wear white for that reason, it's a hard colour to get stains out ot.
ReplyDelete