Heresy! Damned Heresy! On washing woolens

spun a FINE 'yarn':

Aaron, I've had some of the 'oiled' spun wool, and detergent, strong detergent, was the ONLY thing that ungreased and softened the stuff. You make me laugh. Wooden man, LOL, maybe the strawman and tinman and lion have a fourth??? LOL Noreen

Shampoo, laundry "soap", toothpaste, etc: it's all sodium laurel sulfate. The bleach/brightener in all-color fabric detergent is usually some oxygen-based product like OxyClean(tm) and not an actual chlorine bleach, so no harm and no foul WRT damage to the fibers :D

I've only knitted one item that pretends to be anything except dyed: it's natural white wool, a sweater for the spawn. He outgrew it several years ago, so I washed it with a little Clorox2 and then stashed it in the cedar chest. After two winters of hard wear it'll never be clean again...

What comes after the wooden man Aaron? Laughing out loud, Dennis

The label does not say what it in the laundry detergent, except ionic and anionic surfactants. So it has more than just sodium laurel sulfate as a wetting agent; likely also poly(sodium styrene sulfonate) (PSS) and other stuff. My guess is the laundry detergent also has some borates, some carbonates, and maybe some nitroacetic acid. The bleach part is likely a small amount of sodium perborate with a magnesium catalyst to produce H2O2 in the presence of water. It is not shampoo. I would not encourage anyone to brush their teeth with it. I would hesitate to put a luxury yarn in it.

My hand soap, is just that! It is a good hard milled soap, so I can also use it for shaving. I could brush my teeth with it in an emergency, That would not be fun, but it would be safe and effective.

I would rather brush my teeth with my hand soap, than with the wool wash. Who knows what is in it?.

On the way back to the car from skiing, I took a "shortcut" and ended up on the snow bank where oil and black grime from the parking lot had been collecting all winter. My new gansey was soiled. "Simple Green" took MOST of it out. Maybe it really needs a trip through the washer with some LAUNDRY DETERGENT.

Aar>

bleach/brightener in all-color fabric detergent is

Iron Man Wooden Man Hard Man - i.e, rock climbing bum from the 1970's - now extinct US Marine serving in Iraq Weather man (thick skin because of so many complaints about the weather)

snip

Good very Good!!!

Dennis

I want to know: What was the brand of this yarn? And what was the detergent?

Higs, Katherine

on wool , cotton etc ,,, everytime i would preffer hair shampoos but in a case like your fall ,,,, Dishwasher Fluids or cream ,,, Never Laundry Detergent ,,,, My 50 +++ years of washing ,,, mirjam

It was Cottage Craft yarn from St. Andrews, New Brunswick. It is an oiled, tightly spun yarn that is just under worsted weight (242 yd/113 g). Wonderfull, Wonderfull colors, hard wearing - excellent stitch definition - but a bit scratchy, bit of veggie material - very reasonably priced

The detergent was the Purcell powder for low water use washers.

Last nigh, the white Cornish Gansey knit out of Lion's Brand Fisherman's wool got washed in the same stuff, in preparation for dying blue. It seems to have come out OK.

(My theory is that a blue gansey will dry somewhat faster than a white one given any available sunlight) I have now spent some time in the rain in my white gansey, and it is time to try the same fabric in a darker color that will absorb more sunlight. At this point, I have little expectation of a perceptible difference, because as a white gansey, it was warm and comfortable in the rain, even when the spruce green "fisherman's sweater" knit by Cottage Craft was cold and wet in a matter of minutes. (Yes! A loose knit wool sweater in a hard, cold rain is cold! A tight knit wool sweater in the same cold rain is perfectly warm. The loose knit sweater weights 100 g more, and is not as warm.) And, the looser knit fabric stayed wet longer while being worn. That is: the tighter knit fabrics dried faster while being worn after the rain stopped, the looser knit fabrics dried faster on the drying rack.

Aaron

Like I said, "Not for luxury yarns!" But, extreme events call for extreme measures.

Thanks for the info on them. I have looked at their website and loved the colors but haven't purchased any of the yarn yet.

Just for info: it is not the chlorine that bleaches, but the oxygen the hypochlorite lets go. Chemists figured this out less than 100 years ago. Some years after they figured out that hydrogen peroxide is a bleach.

Cece

Those tender, gentle wool washes are not designed for oiled or greasy wool - they really don't clean much. Your laundry detergent cut the grease, which released all of the dirt and the true nature of the wool.