It was in Morocco that I learned how to get a white shirt really clean. I was in college then and entirely uninterested in laundry. But the results were dazzling – my white cotton blouses, dingy from my then-routine of washing all clothes together in a single weekly load, were restored to brilliancy on the concrete rooftops of Moroccan friends’ homes
First you dip the shirt in a tub of cool water and wring out excess water. Next you spread it out and pre-treat stains and dingy areas, such as the inside of the collar by rubbing them with a bar of laundry soap.
Then the shirt goes back into the tub. This time you stretch the soiled areas over a ridged wooden board and scrub them with a stiff brush using quick, percussive back and forth motions, similar to shining shoes. (Rubbing the brush back and forth without lifting it can damage the fabric). After all shirts have been pre-treated, you set a large kettle of water on a propane burner or other heat source to boil.
Next you tip over the tub, letting the water out but leaving the shirts in. Then you sprinkle powdered laundry detergent – about a tablespoon per shirt – over the clothes and pour the boiling water on top.
With a wooden stick you stir the shirts around in the water until the detergent is completely dissolved. After the shirts have soaked about 20 minutes, you rinse them in a tub of cool water spiked with the juice of half a lemon. Then you wring the shirts and hang them on a line in full sunshine to dry. When temperatures are in the 80s and humidity is low, drying takes about 20 minutes.
In the 18 years that have passed since that trip, I’ve found that no detergent, bleach, bleach substitute or stain remover – even when used with top-of-the-line washing machines – gets dingy white shirts anywhere near as clean as scrubbing them by hand.
Sadly, I don’t have a concrete rooftop equipped with running water and a propane burner or an arid desert climate to work with. But I’ve learned a few tricks to get close to hand-washed whiteness:
_Hot water. It’s the only way to go for whites, towels, socks and sheets. Maybe the fabrics will wear out sooner, but they’ll be cleaner until they do.
_Overnight soaking. I start white loads in the evening, turn off the machine in the middle of the wash cycle and restart it in the morning. (Don’t try this with colored or mixed loads – color transfers will occur.)
_Bluing. Sold at the supermarket in small blue bottles, half a capful makes whites look brighter.
_Spot treatment. Rather than add a scoop of OxyClean or one of its imitators to each load, I mix a little into a watery paste and apply it directly to stains. A fingernail brush makes a good scrubber.
_Bleach. A friend told me she learned in beautician school that it’s less damaging to hair to apply a stronger bleach solution for a shorter time than a milder solution for a longer time. I follow the same principle: If a spot doesn’t come out in the wash I take it to the sink and apply bleach with an eyedropper. (I keep some in an old children’s medicine bottle.) As soon as the stain starts to disappear I flood the area with water from the faucet to avoid overbleaching. Always inspect clothes for spots before putting them in the dryer – the heat will set the stain.
_Lemon juice and sunshine. This really works, especially with tablecloths. Squeeze juice from a fresh lemon onto residual spots after washing and dry in strong sunlight. There’ll be nothing left of that gravy but a fond memory.
>From KRT Wire
