Laundry blue
Reckitt's
Category
Historic Services / Laundry
Date
circa 1850 - circa 1950
Materials
Hessian and paper
Place of origin
Hull
Order this imageCollection
Wicken Fen, Cambridgeshire
NT 82630
Summary
A bag of 'Reckitts Bag Blue / Ready for Use'. A small hessian bag with paper wrapper. Before the development of modern laundry detergents which include optical brighteners, ultra bright white laundry was achieved using a little blue bag which was stirred around in the final rinse water on washday. This was laundry bluing or blue. A factory-produced block was the "modern" (mid-19th century onwards) commercial version of older recipes for whitening clothes, with names like stone blue, fig blue, or thumb blue. It disguised any hint of yellow and helped the household linen look whiter than white. Sold as penny cubes to be wrapped in flannel or muslin, or ready bagged. The main ingredients were synthetic ultramarine and baking soda, and the original blocks weighed an ounce. Reckitt’s had been in the blue and starch business in Hull even before they started importing French ultramarine in the 1850s to make the new blue rinse additive. They built up a major international brand, with various lesser rivals, including Dolly Blue, in the UK. Proud of their product, Victorian advertising by Reckitts in the UK carried a recommendation from the Prince of Wales' laundress.
Provenance
Anonymous donation to the furnishing of Fen Cottage in the 2000's.
Makers and roles
Reckitt's, detergent manufacturer