From 1949: With Just One Rinse

'Round the Linger homestead, 
Sunday Night tends to be Laundry Night.

Ken dreads it, because invariably I get to pining for Laundry Detergents Gone, But Not Forgotten.  Like Duz.  Or Salvo.  Or even Solo, which was actually a fabric softener.

1950

 1965

date unknown

Some of the classic old brands are still around, but damn, you have to work triple-time to find them.  I have the most luck at Big Lots, should I want to take a walk down Rare Laundry Detergents Lane (and, of course, I always do).

The laundry detergent I love to remember the most is Oxydol.  Not only do I remember my own Mom using it when we were kids, it is prominently featured in the 1981 John Waters' classic Polyester.  Remember when Dexter is looking for a foot to stomp in the grocery store?  Look in the background at the brands.  There it is, in all its green-boxed, early eighties' glory: Oxydol.

I scored a big bottle of the stuff at Big Lots last spring, and it was wonderful...but I haven't seen it on the shelves since. 

 Obviously some of the women from Jonestown were recruited for Oxydol print ads.

In this ad, more psychotic housewives, possibly while overdosing on Miltown, enjoy the whiter whites their Oxydol detergent delivered.

This ad for Oxydol was obviously someone's graduate thesis.  Well, laundry is a science, after all.  The Monkees and Julie Newmar taught us that.

From 1949, the earliest days of television.
I think this model of washing machine actually was called 
"The Mangler."