Starch and other forgotten stuff

looksee · 31-07-2011 10:13pm #1

I'm posting this in here because I doubt anyone would know what I am talking about on other forums. And I don't think there is a laundry or housekeeping forum (is there?).

Anyway I have got a few of the nice cotton blouses that are around at the moment - I made the decision to stop wearing teeshirts after I saw my reflection one too many times. But it seems as though they are no sooner ironed than they look sad, and it occurred to me that a dip in some well diluted starch might improve them. Not to make them stiff, just a bit of finish.

So I went hunting for starch. Either the packet stuff (Robin?) or the spray on. Nothing. Does it still exist, has anyone seen it anywhere? Or is there some magical modern product I should be using?

Anyway, even if no-one is interested in starch there might be other long forgotten products that are no longer seen. Black lead? Does anyone need it? Boracic powder, great for minor wounds - gone. Dry shampoo - does anyone remember that? Horrible stuff!

aujopimur · 31-07-2011 10:36pm

Rinso.
Lux soap flakes for woolens.
Red Friendly matches.
Penny sweets.

looksee · 31-07-2011 11:31pm

Oh yes, tooth'paste' actually a solid cake - in a little flat round tin that you scrubbed your toothbrush on to get a lather!

And Beechams powders - in a folded paper. Edit - still available, aspirin and caffeine apparently.

And 'spills' - coloured woodeny things used to light pipes - the posh version of the newspaper ones that the kids were set on to fold and put in a jar by the hearth.

OldGoat · 01-08-2011 12:11am

I still use starch on my shirts. Readly available in spray tins in Dunnes and Tesco. Robin brand as well as own brands.

looksee · 01-08-2011 9:29am

OldGoat wrote: »

I still use starch on my shirts. Readly available in spray tins in Dunnes and Tesco. Robin brand as well as own brands.

Oh, right, I'll try again, looked in two branches of Tesco, including a big one and one (small) dunnes, thanks OG.

nesbitt · 01-08-2011 1:34pm

looksee wrote: »

I'm posting this in here because I doubt anyone would know what I am talking about on other forums. And I don't think there is a laundry or housekeeping forum (is there?).

Anyway I have got a few of the nice cotton blouses that are around at the moment - I made the decision to stop wearing teeshirts after I saw my reflection one too many times. But it seems as though they are no sooner ironed than they look sad, and it occurred to me that a dip in some well diluted starch might improve them. Not to make them stiff, just a bit of finish.

So I went hunting for starch. Either the packet stuff (Robin?) or the spray on. Nothing. Does it still exist, has anyone seen it anywhere? Or is there some magical modern product I should be using?

Anyway, even if no-one is interested in starch there might be other long forgotten products that are no longer seen. Black lead? Does anyone need it? Boracic powder, great for minor wounds - gone. Dry shampoo - does anyone remember that? Horrible stuff!

Baptiste 'Dry' Shampoo is alive and well and in use. It is sold now in several varities too and is on the festival goers must have list.

My eldest teen uses it as a volumising product to get that just so Brigitte Bardot look

Brillo Pads anyone remember?

I remember that cake toothpaste, it was 'smokers' toothpaste my dad used to use it. Bless him.

OldGoat · 01-08-2011 1:43pm

Clinic shampoo.

who the fug · 01-08-2011 1:59pm

Iodine,

Had a septic finger was going to lance it myself but had no iodine to hand , so off to Boots.

They had to dig out the geriatric chemist out the back to understand what I was asking for.

(Should have seen the look of horror on the young wans when I explained what I was going to do with it)

Wonder do they still do a poultice

Rubecula · 01-08-2011 3:47pm

I use spray starch when Ironing and you can get a simiar spray that smooths out the creases well too without any stiffness. I get mine from Tesco, Aldi, or Lidl. (Aldi and Lidl seem to sell it itermittantly so best to look around.) Other places may sell it if you have them over there, such as TJ Hughes.

chucken1 · 01-08-2011 5:24pm

Brillo pads are still around

Saw my daughter last week with a spray can of dry shampoo..I have to say I thought it was gone long ago.

Oh yes,how about nappysan?
Nothing like a bucket of nappies soaking in the old nappysan.
And then washing them and having a lovely clothes line full of white nappies
blowing in the breeze.

looksee · 01-08-2011 11:25pm

I found spray starch in Supervalu, thanks for the suggestions.

The toothpaste I remember was for children, it was in pink and blue flat containers, though you have reminded me of the smoker's toothpaste, wasn't it called Eucryl or something, that word just popped unbidden into my head! Edit, its still around!

Can you not get iodine? Wonder why that has gone.We also used to use something called ...what? bright pink stuff - mercurochrome, but that was in the tropics so may not have been heard of here. Just checked it, apparently it had trace amounts of mercury and is banned in the US.

Just reminded me, I had a discussion with an art class a while ago, when one student (English was not her first language) wanted to know why pipe cleaners were so called. The class was amazed at the explanation!

chucken1 · 02-08-2011 2:03pm

Your mention of Eucryl sparked a long conversation here last night (have little to talk about :pac:)

Got me thinking of another toothpaste I thought had gone but its still around it seems.. Euthymol. I remember it smelt like antiseptic?

...which brought us on to Germalene Ointment. The mammy next door threw this on all of us kids everything from stings to sunburn. Which brought us on to,can the mammy next door do this now without written consent...doubt it

Rubecula · 02-08-2011 2:55pm

Never see bottles of Kaolin and Morphine now either. Wonderful stuff that worked, unlike this Imodium they sell now. Be just as effective to suck on an old newspaper.

When I go away I leave my toothpaste at home and take a tube of Euthymol with me. It is very pink:D

I remember my mum boil washing my sisters nappies. Not sure you should try that with Huggies:D

We had a "boiler" back then. A round barrel shaped thing with a heating element. Basically a heated dolly-tub, I can still see mum bashing the clothes about in it. Later when we got rich we got a second hand electric tub with a mangle on the top. I loved the mangle you could shove anything through it... even the cat if I could have caught it.... well maybe not the cat.:D

Something else I remember my dad buying was Davenport's I don't know if you had that in Ireland but the adverts on the telly always said "Beer at home means Davenport's" Pint bottles of beer delivered to the door like milk, in wooden crates.

I also remember my dad and grandad sitting ad smoking Capstan full strength cigarettes. (I later tried them myself) Never see them anymore. Speaking of cigarettes, how many of you remember Sobranie. Lads used to smoke the Russian Black and at parties there were always the Sobranie cocktail cigarettes (multi coloured things) They all had a sophisticated ( well to us it was sophisticated) gold coloured filter on them. Awful things but we thought we were cool.

I remember my mum taking me to a place in Liverpool were they supplied poorer families with shoes for the school for the kids. Very heavy shoes they were too. But you could launch a really good kick up the backside of the kid in front of you at school LOL Not that I ever did of course.:) The girls shoes were as bad. Never forget the kick I got off my sister across the shins. I have the mental scars to this day. God bless her.

chucken1 · 02-08-2011 3:17pm

Beer delivered to the door?? :eek: **patent pending or similar**

Come on Rube we have a new job!!!!!

looksee · 02-08-2011 7:41pm

We had a boiler in the kitchen too (north of England) known as 'the copper'. And an enormous mangle outside in the back garden. Such hauling around as my mother did - cotton sheets taken from the boiler in the house to the tub outside and then through the wringer! And the rubbing board that took your knuckles off. And a ponser for sluicing the the clothes around in the tub. Thank goodness we had a washing machine by the time I was big enough to be useful!

I don't remember beer being delivered to any doors! It would have to be taken in fairly sharpish!

Jellybaby1 · 02-08-2011 8:44pm

Yep, Brillo still going strong, thank goodness, I still scrub out the oven with it. I have also used the spray stuff but it nearly kills me off with the fumes, so long live Brillo!

Also, anyone remember Blue! For whitening yer man's shirts and the nets!

Rubecula · 03-08-2011 2:39pm

chucken1 wrote: »

Beer delivered to the door?? :eek: **patent pending or similar**

Come on Rube we have a new job!!!!!

And when it all gets too much we can sit in the back of the van too.

No idea what Davenports tasted like (I was too young to find out) but I remember the smell of it oddly enough. To me it was and always has been the real smell of Beer. Weird eh?

Another thing I remember from way back then was my mums crockery that had a sort of tartan pattern on it. Food tasted better off that.

mariaalice · 04-08-2011 8:52am

Sweet Aftern cigarettes....I think that's what they were called they had a few line of a poem on the pack....then there was washing soda it was used instead of washing up liquid...sunlight soap and this other red soap that came in a big bar.

looksee · 04-08-2011 10:36am

I remember the soap in the red bar, washing soap, big ignorant lump of a thing with hard corners that had to be sliced into pieces.

Soda - bicarb - is a great cleaner, much better than the fancy stuff in bottles for a lot of jobs.

OldGoat · 04-08-2011 10:57am

mariaalice wrote: »

... and this other red soap that came in a big bar.

Carbolic.

Rubecula · 04-08-2011 5:41pm

OldGoat wrote: »

Carbolic.

That was the one word threat my mum used if I ever said the "wrong word"

The threat being she would wash my mouth out with it. Just the smell was enough to make me be good and quiet.

Alice1 · 04-08-2011 8:54pm

mariaalice wrote: »

Sweet Aftern cigarettes....I think that's what they were called they had a few line of a poem on the pack....then there was washing soda it was used instead of washing up liquid...sunlight soap and this other red soap that came in a big bar.

Sweet Afton..."Flow gently Sweet Afton, among thy green braes, flow gently I'll sing thee a song in thy praise"...

Sunlight Soap - a most eeerm distinctive perfume. Reckitt's Blue to whiten your sheets and things. Brillo, Silvo and Brasso to make yer house lovely and clean. Parazone and Jeyes Fluid - germs hadn't a chance in my childhood home!

Cicero · 04-08-2011 9:18pm

Ball of blue....you starch people know what I mean...:D

Harpic powder..yuck....

Milk bottle carrier rack left outside the door with the arrow pointing to the number of bottles required to be left by the milkman the following morning....and boy, you better get em before the magpies and blue-tits do...;)

looksee · 04-08-2011 11:05pm

Cicero wrote: »

Ball of blue....you starch people know what I mean...:D

Harpic powder..yuck....

Milk bottle carrier rack left outside the door with the arrow pointing to the number of bottles required to be left by the milkman the following morning....and boy, you better get em before the magpies and blue-tits do...;)

Lol, true, though I don't recall that the birds having had their beaks in the cream was a good reason for not using the milk...

There's another thing, cream on milk, just a couple of inches, but yum, if you could get it before some spoilsport shook the bottle!

OldGoat · 05-08-2011 8:06am

Loosening the milkcap slightly and then waiting for your brother to shake the bottle before his breakfast. :cool:

Jellybaby1 · 05-08-2011 10:33am

OldGoat wrote: »

Loosening the milkcap slightly and then waiting for your brother to shake the bottle before his breakfast. :cool:

Are you MY brother?!!!!!!!!!!!!! My brother used to do things like that to me, also the lemonade bottles, and when he stirred his tea with a spoon he would hand me the spoon whilst holding the handle and I'd burn my fingey!!!

Rubecula · 05-08-2011 2:15pm

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

Are you MY brother?!!!!!!!!!!!!! My brother used to do things like that to me, also the lemonade bottles, and when he stirred his tea with a spoon he would hand me the spoon whilst holding the handle and I'd burn my fingey!!!

ROFL, with me it was ketchup and my sister did it to me. I still have the habit of checking/tightening the top of a bottle of ketchup to this day.

Mollywolly · 06-08-2011 10:29pm

looksee wrote: »

We had a boiler in the kitchen too (north of England) known as 'the copper'. And an enormous mangle outside in the back garden. Such hauling around as my mother did - cotton sheets taken from the boiler in the house to the tub outside and then through the wringer! And the rubbing board that took your knuckles off. And a ponser for sluicing the the clothes around in the tub. Thank goodness we had a washing machine by the time I was big enough to be useful!

I don't remember beer being delivered to any doors! It would have to be taken in fairly sharpish!

I remember mangles! We used to have one in the back yard (north west England) when I were a lass, then we went all posh and got a top loader washing machine with a mangle attached....whoopeedoo

I also remember Davenport's Beer, but my dad used to go to the local with a huge jug/bottle and got it filled to bring home. I wonder if this makes him a very early recyclist???

Rubecula · 07-08-2011 8:32am

Mollywolly are we related LOL. Almost word for word on my memories.

And if we were good we got the treat of a Milkyway while dad has his Davenports.

looksee · 07-08-2011 11:09am

Ah yes, the threepenny sweet! Our mother would take us to Kate's shop where you could have a bar or sweets for 3d, Mars bars and Cadbury's chocolate were out because they were 6d.

Then the Co-op opened at the end of the street, a supermarket! The first I ever saw and rather before its time -1956 or 7.

Rubecula · 07-08-2011 1:33pm

Co-Op? Wow that brings back memories of Green Shield Stamps. I remember helping my gran and my mum sticking them in a book so they could be used to get things.

Starch and other forgotten stuff

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