household advice needed

dv8

Gold
Sep 27, 2006
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i have towels, you know. formerly white, now more in grayish hue. but they are nice towels and i want to return them to their former glory.
yes, laundry in DR sucks big time as it is not really possible to wash in very hot water - which is what i would do at home. but alas, we are not in kansas, or even szczecin, for all that matters. so i wash towels in cold water. i use washing powder (tide?), cloro and rayito. but the results are not impressive.
i need a good dominican method of making my whites real white. so please, ask your wives, mothers and maids - what can i do?

spare me any advice concerning the use of american products that one can get in america only. i am in DR and i need something that is available here, ok?
 

Matilda

RIP Lindsay
Sep 13, 2006
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Get a bucket. Fill with water and chloro and washing powder. Place towels in buckets and soak for an hour. Buy Dominican washing soap - comes in blocks, jabon de cuaba or jabon candado it is called, and available in any colmado - whole or half a bar. Squat next to bucket and wash towels with soap, scrubbing hard until knuckles raw. Result is beautiful white towels. If no water in house do same process but at river.

Matilda
 

dv8

Gold
Sep 27, 2006
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ok, i need to clarify: i need something that will make my towels white and require no work from me :)

this dominican soap thing, can i use it for washing in a washing machine? tide is, frankly, crap.
 

Tamborista

hasta la tambora
Apr 4, 2005
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OXYCLEAN will make anything whiter, and not bleach out colors. I am sure it is sold somewhere in the larger stores.
Just soak the towels for 1/2 hour in a sink with a cup of it, then wash as normal, add a little to the wash.

oxyclean.gif
 

AnnaC

Gold
Jan 2, 2002
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White towels, sheets etc should never be washed with anything else but whites. My dear old aunt said so.

I made a call to Sicily because I remember pots of water and sheets boiling :) Her instructions were similar to Mats except we had some huge copper kettle, filled it with water, boiled it (we didn't have hot water back then) left soapy sheets and towels over night then washed as normal.

You can do the same in washing machine. Good soaking is the key. She said you can also soap them up and place in the sun but only if they are 100% cotton.
 

Matilda

RIP Lindsay
Sep 13, 2006
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ok, i need to clarify: i need something that will make my towels white and require no work from me :)

this dominican soap thing, can i use it for washing in a washing machine? tide is, frankly, crap.

Call yourself a hard working housewife?! You could try rubbing the towels with it and then putting them in the washing machine, but not sure it would work as well as you doing it yourself. Just think, all that hard work with the arms will be like pectoral exercise and stop the tits sagging later.

334iwp2.jpg


Matilda
 
Jan 17, 2009
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It's very common in Latin America and also here to use "Azul" to make whites whiter. It's a rather small looking cube "pastilla" that will dissolve in water as if it were blue ink. You put it in a little bag and in water with your whites inside and in the sun for 10-15 minutes (only works for whites!). Most detergents now incorporate it but when used full strength is pretty amazing what it can do. If that doesn't make your whites whiter, forget about trying anything else. You got to be very careful not to put too much in your water. If you never used it before, test it first with something white you don't care if you ruin it. You can buy them at groceries stores. I'm not sure if colmados carry it. I bought it at Janet's in Cabarete.
 

cbmitch9

Bronze
Nov 3, 2010
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ok, i need to clarify: i need something that will make my towels white and require no work from me :)

this dominican soap thing, can i use it for washing in a washing machine? tide is, frankly, crap.

Yes. You can use it in the washing machine but you will have to grate it first, which requires some work on your part.
 

belgiank

Silver
Jun 13, 2009
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ok, i need to clarify: i need something that will make my towels white and require no work from me :)

this dominican soap thing, can i use it for washing in a washing machine? tide is, frankly, crap.

Use Matilda's method, but pay your Dominican cleaning lady to do it for you. I am sure she will do a better job, be happy with the couple of extra hundred pesos, and will be over the moon if you tell her she will have no sagging tits...

In a perfect world, she should pay you, but alas....

BelgianK
 

Matilda

RIP Lindsay
Sep 13, 2006
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Expat-in -Cabarete yes I forgot about that. You can buy them in the colmado, they come in little boxes like this one and are called bolita azul - blue balls.

ba2d2.jpg


Or you can use bigger blue balls too, although these are usually used for dishes.

2f06pls.jpg


Matilda
 

AlterEgo

Administrator
Staff member
Jan 9, 2009
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South Coast
I had shipped down all sorts of dishwashing stuff - Dawn and Palmolive for handwashing, Cascade for the dishwasher, but all the housekeeper wanted me to buy was the blue balls every time she knew I was headed to La Sirena.

As far as the white towels and clothes, as AnnaC said, always wash alone with bleach added. I had totally forgotten about the boiling them on the stove, but I can remember my Sicilian grandmother doing that too. My suegra used to soak them in a bleach and water mixture in a big plastic tub for what seemed to be a couple of hours before she put them into the washer.
 

dv8

Gold
Sep 27, 2006
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i don't think boiling could be done - i have no pot big enough... at home my mum used to have a small metal tub. and a giant stove...
i have the blue stuff, the one used for washing dishes.

so the consensus is to soak, soak, soak and then wash. i will try it then, overnight. or maybe overday, it seems to better to leave that in the sun, right?
 

william webster

Platinum
Jan 16, 2009
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Call yourself a hard working housewife?! You could try rubbing the towels with it and then putting them in the washing machine, but not sure it would work as well as you doing it yourself. Just think, all that hard work with the arms will be like pectoral exercise and stop the tits sagging later.
334iwp2.jpg


Matilda

I think I remember somebody bragging about their 'double D's' ........... this may be a good routine:ermm:

Perhaps some of could drop by for before and after inspections ???
 

judypdr

Active member
Jul 23, 2011
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Costambar
Drying white items in the sun makes a big difference. And once you get them white, don't let them get gray again. Depending on your water (harder is worse), bleach may make them worse!
 

ybonabeach

Member
Jan 16, 2008
238
26
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All this talk about blue balls.....and here I thought that was something completely different and now I find out it's used for washing whites.....damn lying men :speechles