Dolly Blue or Ultramarine blue or Prussian blue, used for whitening washing during the 19th and 20th century

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Before we had modern laundry detergents with optical brighteners, there was a mysterious little blue bag which was stirred around in the final rinse water on washday. This was laundry bluing or blue. A factory-produced block was the "modern" (mid-19th century onwards), commercial version of older recipes for whitening clothes, with names like stone blue, fig blue, or thumb blue. It disguised any hint of yellow and helped the household linen look whiter than white.

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Size: 6384px × 4248px
Location: uk
Photo credit: © Alan Mather / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

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