WASHING AMERICAN CHINTZES.—American chintzes, of good quality, (such as are sold at twelve or fourteen cents per yard,) can be washed so as to retain their colours, and look as bright as when quite new. The water must be quite clean, and merely warm, but by no means hot. Rub the soap into the water, so as to form a strong lather, before you put in the dress. Add to the lather a handful of fine salt. Wash the chintz through two warm waters, making a lather in the second also, and adding salt. The salt will keep the colours from running. Then rinse it through two cold waters; putting a table-spoonful of vinegar into each, before the dress goes in. This will brighten the colours. Immediately, wring out the dress, and hang it up to dry; but not in the sun. When nearly dry, (so as to be just damp enough to iron,) have irons ready heated; bring in the dress; stretch it well, and iron it on the wrong side. If allowed to become quite dry on the line, and then sprinkled and rolled up, and laid aside to be ironed next day, the colours may run from remaining damp all night.
An imported chintz, a gingham, or a mousseline de laine, may be washed in the above manner; which we know to be excellent; substituting, for the salt, a table-spoonful of ox-gall in each water. All sorts of coloured dresses should be washed and ironed as quickly as possible, when once begun. It is well to allot a day purposely to coloured dresses, rather than to do them with all the other things on the regular washing-day. If washed in half-dirty suds, and left soaking in the rinsing-water, the colours will most assuredly run and fade, and the dress look dingy all over.
Of course, nothing that has any colour about it should be either scalded, or boiled, or washed in hot water. Scalding, boiling, and hot-water washing are only for things entirely white.
PRESERVING THE COLOURS OF DRESSES.—Before washing a new dress, try a small piece of the material, and see if the colours are likely to stand of themselves. They are generally fast, if the article is so well printed that the wrong side is difficult to distinguish from the right. If you obtain from the store a small slip for testing the durability of the colours, give it a fair trial, by washing it through two warm waters with soap, and then rinsing it through two cold waters. No colours whatever will stand, if washed in hot water. Some colours, (very bright pinks and light greens particularly,) though they may bear washing perfectly well, will change as soon as a warm iron is applied to them; the pink turning purplish, and the green bluish.
The colours of merinoes, mousselines de laine, ginghams, chintzes, printed lawns, &c., may be preserved in washing by mixing a table-spoonful of ox-gall in the first and second waters, (which should not be more than lukewarm,) and making a lather of the soap and water before you put in the dress, instead of rubbing the soap on it afterwards. At the last, to brighten the colours, stir into the second rinsing-water a small tea-spoonful of oil of vitriol, if the dress is that of a grown person; for a child’s dress, half a tea-spoonful will suffice. If washed at home, one of the ladies of the family should herself put in the vitriol, as, if left to the servants, they may injure the dress by carelessly putting in too much. Vitriol is excellent for preserving light or delicate colours.
The colours of a common calico or mousseline de laine may be set by putting into each of the two warm waters a large handful of salt, and into each rinsing water a tea-spoonful of vinegar.
No coloured articles should be allowed to remain in the water, as soaking will cause the colours to run in streaks. As soon as the dress is washed and rinsed, let it be immediately wrung out, hung in the shade, and, as soon as dry enough, taken in and ironed at once. Each dress should be washed separately. The washing of dresses should only be undertaken in fine weather.