How To Bleach Sponge

Soak it well in dilute muriatic acid for twelve hours. Wash well with water to remove the lime, then immerse in a solution of hyposulphate of soda, to which dilute muriatic acid has been added a moment before. After it is bleached sufficiently, remove it, wash again, and dry. It may thus be bleached almost white.

How To Whiten Lace

Lace may be restored to its original whiteness by first ironing it slightly, then folding it, and sewing it into a clean linen bag, which is placed for twenty hours in pure olive-oil. Afterward the bag is to be boiled in a solution of soap and water for fifteen minutes, then well rinsed in lukewarm water, and finally dipped into water containing a slight proportion of starch. The lace is then to be taken from the bag, and stretched on pins to dry.

Bleaching Straw Goods

Straw is bleached by simply exposing it in a closed chamber to the fumes of burning sulphur, an old flour barrel is the apparatus most used for the purpose by milliners, a flat stone being laid on the ground, the sulphur ignited thereon, and the barrel containing the goods to be bleached turned over it. The goods should be previously washed in pure water.

How To Clean Ostrich Feathers

Cut some white curd soap in small pieces, pour boiling water on it and add a little pearlash. When the soap is quite dissolved, and the mixture cool enough for the hand to bear, plunge the feathers into it, and draw them through the hand till the dirt appears squeezed out of them, pass them through a clean lather with some blue in it, then rinse them in cold water with blue to give them a good color. Beat them against the hand to shake off the water, and dry by shaking them near a fire. When perfectly dry, coil each fiber separately with a blunt knife, or ivory folder.

Bleaching Powder

Chloride of lime makes a good bleaching powder. The stuff to be bleached is first boiled in lime-water; wash, and without drying, boil again in a solution of soda or potash; wash, and without drying, steep in a weak mixture of chloride of lime and water for six hours; wash, and without drying, steep for four hours in a weak solution or mixture of sulphuric acid and water; wash well and dry. Upon an emergency, chlorate of potash, mixed with three times its weight of common salt and diluted in water, may be used as a bleaching liquid.

Bleaching Ivory

Antique works in ivory that have become discolored may be brought to a pure whiteness by exposing them to the sun under glasses. It is the particular property of ivory to resist the action of the sun's rays, when it is under glass; but when deprived of this protection, to become covered with a multitude of minute cracks. Many antique pieces of sculpture in ivory may be seen, which, although tolerably white, are, at the same time, defaced by numerous cracks; this defect cannot be remedied; but in order to conceal it, the dust may be removed by brushing the work with warm water and soap, and afterward placing it under glass. Antique works in ivory that have become discolored, may be brushed with pumice-stone, calcined and diluted, and while yet wet placed under glasses. They should be daily exposed to the action of the sun, and be turned from time to time, that they may become equally bleached; if the brown color be deeper on one side than the other, that side will, of course, be for the longest time exposed to the sun.

How To Bleach Prints And Printed Books

Simple immersion in dilute muriatic acid, letting the article remain in it a longer or shorter space of time, according to the strength of the liquor, will be sufficient to whiten an engraving; if it be required to whiten the paper of a bound book, as it is necessary that all the leaves should be moistened by the acid, care must be taken to open the book well, and to make the boards rest on the edge of the vessel, in such a manner that the paper alone shall be dipped in the liquid; the leaves must be separated from each other, in order that they may be equally moistened on both sides. The liquor assumes a yellow tint, and the paper becomes white in the same proportion. At the end of two or three hours the book may be taken from the acid liquor, and plunged into pure water with the same care and precaution as recommended in regard to the acid liquor, that the water may touch both sides of each leaf. The water must be renewed every hour, to extract the acid remaining in the paper, and to dissipate the disagreeable smell.

Printed paper may also be bleached by sulphuric acid, or by alkaline or soap leys.

Washing Fluid

Take 1 lb. sal-soda, 1/2 lb. good unslaked lime, and 5 qts. of water; boil a short time, let it settle, and pour off the clear fluid into a stone jug, and cork for use; soak your white clothes over night in simple water, wring out and soap wristbands, collars, and dirty or stained places; have your boiler half filled with water just beginning to boil, then put in one common tea-cupful of this fluid, stir and put in your clothes, and boil for half an hour, then rub lightly through one suds only, and all is complete.