THE GOOD OLD WASH DAYS
Sometimes wash day is a disaster. When this happens, I descend into melancholy remembering the good old days.
Most of the first half of the 20th century was a dedicated drive to improve the wonderful world of clothing and the care thereof.
One of the earliest lessons my mother taught was to always look for the Sanforized™ label. Named after the inventor, Sanford L. Cluett, a patented process to permanently preshrink cotton or linen cloth before making it into apparel, was our guarantee that the clothing we had purchased would remain the same size after washing it. Materials that did not bear that label were subject to shrinkage meaning it might shrink a little or a lot. This incredible discovery took much of the guess work out of the buying and caring for one’s wardrobe.
Another material tag to be alert for was the word “colorfast”. This wonderful innovation meant that the material would keep its original color without fading or running. Colored clothing could be washed in the same load saving time and effort. These two labels took a lot of the horror out of wash day.
I remember the absolute thrill of PERMANENT PRESS! What a privilege to live in the 20th century with all the improvements made to enrich the lives of launderers. I could remember slaving over a hot ironing board wishing that some kind of magic formula could be dumped on the clothes basket and all the clothes would iron themselves. Now with the dawn of this new and wonderful process, taking care of the family’s clothes was not such a dreary task.
Fabric softener wiped out static cling. A box of detergent, always new and improved, was included with each new appliance sale. Wash day worries were a dim memory. Ironing boards were sold at yard sales for pennies. Only a few stores even had irons. I became comfortable knowing that things could only get better. Perhaps in a year or two we would only have to hang our clothes in a special closet, easy to install and economical to maintain, where they would be cleaned with sound waves. Wash day would be eliminated altogether.
While I was basking in the world of possibilities, reality took a nasty turn. The world was changing—changing in a backward direction! I noticed that a really cute blouse I had purchased had become rather tight just after laundering it. Rather tight, my foot! It was half the size of what I’d purchased. What a jolt. My mother’s words came floating back to me. “Make sure it’s Sanforized™.” Oops! It had been so long since I’d had to look for that label, I realized that I had gotten lax in my observance and of what that label conveyed.
Malicious wrinkles invaded my realm holding my clothes hostage. Irons and ironing boards started showing up in motel rooms and were being touted as an innovative convenience. Wash day assurances of ease, worry free and time saving were being sucked down the drain with the rinse water.
As I take out of the washer my originally pale yellow shirt—now a gosh awful bluish green shade of blaugch—it is even more apparent that things are indeed digressing.
I weep at the outcome of this descent into the past. Why? Because, I remember the old wringer washer and the clothes line, the flat irons and static cling. I really don’t want to think back any further than that.
February 2nd, 2008 at 9:46 pm
I too remember all the time consuming days of washing and ironing. The delightful news of “perma press and wrinle free fabrics. With much deep thought, countless days of research, nights of tossing and turning I unlocked a secret….if I put a WET thin clean towel in the dryer with any item that needed to be pressed, turned on the dryer for 5 minutes, Magiccc! My clothes were wrinkle free. So take a risk, before you despair, throw in a wet towel.
March 18th, 2008 at 2:52 am
A decade ago I had a shocking interchange with a newlywed young woman who wanted 100% non-wrinkle free dress shirts for her husband and went in a desperate search for them. It was the beginning of the “fear of polyester” craze. I was shocked and wondered if the girl had lost her mind or had any clue what she was asking for. But then I realized she was soon to become a practicing attorney and would be sending her husbands shirts out to be laundered. I’ve, at last, arrived at a similar juncture. I’m working again after a 20 year hiatus, and I’m sending my husbands white shirts out to be laundered because he bought 100% cotton sateen, NON-wrinkle free dress shirts at Costco. Everything comes back into style, like it or not.