Removing Stains From White Linen

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 285, 22 February 1928, Page 7

Removing Stains From White Linen

Over-drastic treatment in the endeavour to remove stains is one of the potent causes of damage to linen. The laundress must be chary of the qse of chemicals in this connection. The following rules, again, are the result of much investigation by the Linen Trade Research Association. Whenever possible do not allow a stain to dry in. The stain will be much more easily removed if the article is immediately soaked in water. An attempt should be made at the earliest possible moment to remove it by rubbing with hot water and soap. Even if a slight stain remains, this will in most cases disappear when the material is subsequently given a normal wash, and the use of strong chemicals will be unnecessary. Iron rust stains may usually be removed by treatment for about 15 minutes with a solution of oxalic acid (loz to 1 pint) at a temperature just above blood heat. The material must be thoroughly well rinsed after the application. Tea or fruit stains and the like should be soaked in cold water and then treated with nearly boiling water before being washed with soap and soda. If this is not effective, the fol-

RESULT OF EXPERIMENTS

lowing procedure should be adopted: Dissolve some fresh bleaching powder in cold water in a wooden or earthenware vessel, using a heaped teaspoonful to the gallon. Make sure that all lumps of the powder are thoroughly broken up. The material may remain in this solution two or three hours if necessary, being turned over from time to time. The material should be completely immersed in the solution. For the local treatment of very resistant stains a stronger solution may be used (two or three teaspoonfuls to the gallon), but this should only be allowed to act for a few minutes. The bleaching powder should in all cases be used cold. It should be employed only as a last resort, after every effort has been made to remove the stains bv rubbing with hot soap .inc. water. Most stains will disappear m two or three washings, particularly if the linen is dried in the sun. It is important to remove iron rust stains before the bleaching solution is used, and it is essential that the linen should be thoroughly rinsed after the bleaching treatment in order to remove lime from the material as far as possible.