Honestly I’m not the best when it comes to laundry but years of practice have taught me a thing or two about doing laundry correctly. And that means:
- 1. Keeping clothes clean
- 2. Preserving the fabrics texture and colour
- 3. Preserving the life span of the clothes
Now recently I’ve heard a lot of hype about bluing and honestly I’m quite surprised to learn that there are many out there who don’t know what it is or how it works. Frankly bluing is a very old tradition form of whitening whites and makes up part of a full laundry routine. I’m not sure who started it, but I do know that it is an aged old practice in India that is used until today –successfully too!
I’ll start with how bluing works.
Bluing is really all about adding a tinge of blue to your white clothes because in amongst all shades of white, the one with a blue hue is the brightest and clearest looking one. In fact most manufacturers recognize this fact and put their white products through a swirl of blue tint before putting it on the shelves. But the tint doesn’t last forever, the effect of chlorine, detergent and bleach will soon take its toll and that’s when you’re left with a yellowish or grayish looking white.
Bluing is really simple to use too, but you have to be careful to ensure that the bluing is evenly diluted before popping your clothes in for a swirl as a final rinse.
You can find bluing as liquid in a bottle or as a solid (cube) or even in powdered form.
Now what exactly is bluing other than obviously a blue pigment? Whatever you can find in stores is either going to be of Prussian Blue or Ultramarine
Prussian Blue is ferric ferrocyanide which is a synthetic pigment widely used in the cosmetics industry as well as in medicine for Thallium poisoning. FDA emphasizes that Ferric Ferrocyanide is safe for external application so I suppose Prussian Blue is harmless when used on your clothes.
Ultramarines may refer to A blue pigment made from powdered lapis lazuli but that’s unlikely what you have in your bottle of bluing. Instead what you have is most likely a Non-Toxic inorganic pigment, chemically known as sodium alumino-sulphosilicate. FDA allows Ultramarines to be safely used for coloring cosmeticsand personal care products, including products intended for use in the area of the eye, when they conform to specifications.
So in general bluing is good for you whites, probably okay for your health and the environment.
