[29.] To remove grease spots from Paper, Silk or Woolen.
Grate on chalk enough to cover the grease spots. French chalk is the best, but common chalk will answer very well. Cover the spots with brown paper, and set a warm flat iron on the top, and let it remain until cold. Care must be taken not to get the iron so hot as to change the color of the article. If the grease does not appear to be extracted, on removing the flat iron, grate on more chalk, and heat the iron, and put it on again.
[30.] To extract stains from white Cotton goods and Colored Silks.
Spots of common or durable ink, can be removed by saturating them with lemon juice and salt in summer, and keeping them where the sun will shine on them several hours. Rub the juice and salt on them as fast as they get dry. Where lemons cannot be procured, tartaric acid dissolved in salt and water, is a good substitute. Iron mould can be removed in the same way; it is said that spirits of salts diluted with water will also extract iron mould. Sal ammoniac with lime, will take out the stains of wine. Mildew and most other stains on white goods, can be removed by rubbing on soft soap and salt, and putting them in a hot summer's sun, it should be rubbed on as fast as it dries. Where this fails, lemon juice and salt will be generally effectual. Colored cotton goods that have ink spilt on them, should be soaked in lukewarm milk or vinegar; sour milk is the best. Spirits of turpentine, alcohol or sal ammoniac, are all good to remove spots from colored silks.
[31.] Rules for washing Calicoes.
Calicoes that incline to fade, can have the colors set by washing them with beef's gall in clear water previous to washing them in soap suds; a small tea cup full to a pail of water is the right proportion. By squeezing out the gall, and bottling and corking it up, it can be kept several months. A little vinegar in the rinsing water of calicoes, that have green, pink or red colors, will brighten them and prevent their mixing together. Yellow calicoes should be washed in soap suds and not rinsed. A little salt in the rinsing water of calicoes, particularly blues and greens, tends to prevent their fading by subsequent washing, it will also prevent their catching fire readily. Thin starch water is good to wash fading calicoes in, but it is rather hard to get them clean in it; no soap is necessary. Calicoes should not be washed in very hot suds and soft soap should never be used, excepting for buff and yellows, for which it is the best. The two latter colors should not be rinsed in clear water.
[32.] Rules for washing Silks.
The water in which pared potatoes has been boiled, is an excellent thing to wash black silk in, it makes it look almost as black and glossy as new. Beef's gall in soap suds is also very good, and soap suds without the gall does very well. Colored silks should have all the spots removed before the whole of the article is wet. Put soap into boiling water and beat it till it is all dissolved, and forms a strong lather when at a hand heat, put in the article that is to be washed and if strong it may be rubbed hard; when clean squeeze out the water without wringing, and rinse it in warm water. Rinse it in another water and for bright yellows, crimsons, maroons and scarlets, put in oil of vitriol, sufficient to give the water an acid taste, for oranges, fawns, browns or their shades use no acids, for pinks, rose colors, and their shades, use tartaric acid, lemon juice or vinegar. For bright scarlet, use a solution of tin. For blues, purples, and their shades, add a small quantity of American pearlash, to restore the colors. Verdigris dissolved in the rinsing water of olive greens is good to revive the colors, a solution of copper is also good. Dip the silks up and down in the rinsing water, and take them out without wringing, and before they get perfectly dry fold them up tight and let them lay a few moments, then mangle them, if you have not a mangler, iron them on the wrong side. A little isinglass, dissolved in the rinsing water of blondes and gauzes, is good to stiffen them.
[33.] Rules for washing Woolens.
If you do not wish flannels to shrink, wash them in two good suds, made of hard soap, then wring them out, and pour boiling water on them, and let them remain in it till cold. A little indigo in the rinsing water of white flannels makes them look nicer. If you wish to shrink your flannels, wash them in suds made of soft soap, and rinse them in cold water. Colored woolens that incline to fade, should be washed with a little beef's gall in the suds. Cloth pantaloons look well washed with beef's gall in the suds; they should be pressed, when quite damp, on the wrong side.