Suds Your Duds
Revolutions in laundry detergent but not always in the way the stuff is sold
Everyone creates laundry, career nudists excepted.
Who does all those dirty clothes has been a great in-house debate for generations, dating back to when men thought it was “a woman’s job.” Today, that’s a good way to get a guy a room in the dog house. Rightfully so. How we wash those soiled fits is ever-changing, as is the stuff we use to do the job. No more sticks on a rock with lye soap.
We choose to chew these cuds about duds not because it’s easy, but because it’s in the news: Tide detergent, among the first of the modern era of such stuff, is out with a revolutionary new take on laundry soap.
Say hello to Evo, coming soon to a store near you (if you still shop that way).
Axios hails Evo as the biggest change in the laundry soap industry in a decade, a “dry, tile-based alternative to liquids and pods.” It claims Evo’s arrival could be a disrupter in the $25 billion business of getting clothes clean.
And I was just getting used to NOT using this to do my skivvies.
That’s a wringer washer, the kind my mom did our clothes with every Monday and Thursday when I was a little kid. It sat in the basement accompanied by two wash tubs. That’s where I’d be stationed to help whack the lingering detergent out of freshly wrung-out wash with a long wooden stick. The finished product got hung outdoors on clotheslines. As I got older, I got promoted off the tub line and on to putting up and taking down said ropes, something my vertically challenged mother had more trouble doing as years went by. She eventually got more modern devices, around the time I went to college. My first class wasn’t with a professor in an ivy covered campus buidling but with my mom in the basement where she schooled taught Laundry 101. I still do my own wash today. While my wife sorts her clothes by color, fabric, maker, designer, the stores they were bought at, buttons, zippers, stripes, solids, hot, cold and indifferent, I go with the tried and true “there’s-whites-then-everything-else” method.
Mom’s detergent of choice was something called “Oxydol,” once the pride of the Proctor and Gamble fleet when first introduced in the mid 1910’s. History tells us it’s also the reason we call daytime TV dramas “soap operas” as it was the first detergent P&G chose to peddle that way. Tide would surpass Oxidol shortly after it came along right after World War II.
Those soap operas were aimed at legions of stay-at-home moms so they remained the perfect place for Tide and a legion of rivals to vie for their detergent dollars. Sadly, the ads weren’t always Madison Avenue’s finest hour. Read and watch “The Extraordinarily Sexist History of Laundry Detergent Commericials” if you want to get reminded how soap sellers man-splained their wares to the largely female viewing public. Some brands, figuring that pledges of “whiter and brighter” laundry weren’t enough, offered in-box inducements. Breeze served up a series of bath towels, pitched by the country music team of Porter Waggoner and Dolly Parton as late as the early 1970’s. While the spots got more creative over the decades, vestiges of laundry being “a woman’s job” linger today.
Laundry is as inevitable as death and/or taxes, at least until A-I uses its powers for good and finds a way to get the job done without using we humans. Maybe these Chinese bots can be reprogrammed to do something more productive than this.
Fiber tiles may be the wave of the future when it comes to sudsing our duds. The way we sell the soap to do that? Still a work in progress.
It’s more than just a topic that Gene writes about. It’s an adventure of one’s own life/ imagination. My Grandmother had a ringer washing machine. Had to be a Maytag. Absolutely, the Cadillac of washing machines. Even when a more modern, automatic machine came out; it was a Maytag with the ‘sud saver’ feature. Quite an ecologically minded feature long before there were Tree Huggers, save the plants, animals and for goodness sake ‘Earth’. More water based in proportion to land. In reality she, her husband came from Norwegian heritage and if one could turn a ‘ pigs ear into a silk purse’ ; they were so practical, thrifty and very conservative. You didn’t need to waste the water, suds and clothes smelled the same whether the first load or second. Besides; hanging your clothes on a line outdoors had a fresh scent; without any of those scented liquids or sheets. Wash ‘n Wear fabrics was another great introduction. The ironing was way less. I do remember that even bed sheets were once ironed; too. Good grief! Frankly, I still can’t fold a fitted sheet; nicely. Yet; the fabric is so forgiving that when I put it on the mattress; after figuring out what is the width and length of this sheet, it doesn’t have wrinkles. Over the years; I likely do. The inside tag at one corner should be the key. Yet; depending on one’s perspective; you, can still get it wrong. Frustration; adds to a simple task into an Event! It’s a truism that we often are our own worst enemy. That’s where a human survival instinct of self- laughter comes in. Is it Spring; yet? Nah! Just a tease; however, in three days the first Brewers, Spring Training game is broadcast. Ooh! The Guardians vs the Crew. Game On!