Staple products found in our childhood kitchens, bathrooms, garages, etc

[Oil Lady]

I wasn't sure where to put this one. Didn't quite fit into the "Emergency Preparations" sub-forum, nor "Medical Needs and First Aid," nor "Homesteading and Self Reliant Living," nor "Transportation," nor "Gardening and Agriculture," etc, etc, etc. 

But I want to try and assemble a master list of all those very old-school products that mom and granny and even great-grandma each had in the kitchen pantry, the bathroom medicine cabinet, the hallway cleaning closet, the basement laundry room, the garden potting shed, and even on the garage workbench. These products from yester-year tended to be very shelf-stable, and could (usually!) be safely combined with other products. Even more advantageous was that they were all just so darned common to almost all American households that speaking with family, friends and neighbors about these products needed no explanation or conversational footnotes.

I am not saying modern products are inferior. I am instead hoping to recapture forgotten knowledge of the most basic household products from days gone by. Knowledge of these products --what they were and how they worked-- can, I believe, help us of today to better navigate the correct applications for the more modern, new-fangled products being pushed on us by advertisers. I see those old school products as the "baseline of understanding" for how ALL household chemicals should be applied. Getting a handle on this foundational baseline is key to being wise and judicious in our usage of the newer products of today, and even the yet-to-be-invented products of tomorrow. 



So ... I have six categories. I'm certainly open to more:

PANTRY ... MEDICINE CHEST ... CLEANING CLOSET ... LAUNDRY ROOM ... POTTING SHED ... WORKBENCH  

Help me out with these categories. And duplicating one product into multiple categories is fine since so many of them had multiple uses.




Here's my own list so far:



PANTRY
- Baking soda
- Vinegar
- Baking powder
- Flour
- Sugar
- Salt
- Pepper
- Worcestershire sauce
- Cooking oil
- Lard
- Butter
- Honey
- Coffee
- Tea
-
-
-
 



MEDICINE CHEST
- Epsom salt
- Hydrogen peroxide
- Iodine
- Rubbing alcohol
- Syrup of  ipecac
- Ichthammol ointment
- Vaseline (most common brand name for petroleum jelly)
- Listerine (most common and oldest-surviving brand name for an alcohol-based mouth wash/throat gargle)
- Witch hazel
-
-


CLEANING CLOSET
- Bleach
- Spirits of ammonia 
- Ajax
- Lemon oil (used as a furniture polish and a glass cleaner)
- Moth balls
- Murphy's Oil Soap
- Old English Scratch Cover (brand name for a wood stain product which hides scratches in wood furniture)
- Pine Sol (brand name for a pine-scented, all-purpose cleaner)
- Bees wax (for polishing furniture)
- Leather soap (saddle soap??)
-
-
-



 




LAUNDRY ROOM
- Soap flakes
- Bleach
- Starch (for ironing)
- Kerosene (a good stain lifter, but keep it away from the dryer!)
-
-
-


POTTING SHED
- (I have no clue, but I figured this needed to be separate from the "Workbench" category)
-
-


WORKBENCH
- 3-in-One Oil (brand name for a multi-use machine oil)
- Kerosene
- Turpentine
-
-
-

[d3nni5]

I always remember our medicine cabinet with the following too...


tri-fold sling  (actually under the sink)
ace bandage  (actually under the sink)
bandaids of various sizes
eye patch
eye wash cup
tweezers
scissors
magnifying glass
razor and shaving cream, brut 33 or old spice
brylcreem (a little dab will do ya), dad actually was partial to Wildroot!
comb and brush
sea-bond






We always had  vics vapo-rub too.

[nkawtg]

LAUNDRY ROOM
- Soap flakes
- Bleach
- Starch (for ironing)
- Kerosene (a good stain lifter, but keep it away from the dryer!)
- Washing Soda
-
-


POTTING SHED
- Shovel, spade
- Rake
- Hoe
- Trowel
-


WORKBENCH
- 3-in-One Oil (brand name for a multi-use machine oil)
- Kerosene
- Turpentine
- Denatured Alcohol
- Mineral Spirits
-

[TexDaddy]

I moved it to a location I thought was better. I also put a sticky on it because I think this has the potential of being a really great list.

[TexDaddy]

To add to the work bench list,

My Dad worked in the oil field and he worked on the car and the lawn mover and such so he always had a waterless hand cleaner such as this to get the oil and grease off of his hands.

[d3nni5]

More Workbench..

Boiled Linseed Oil
WD-40
Acetone

[r_w]

Bag balm.  In the medicine cabinet, work bench, and laundry room (for after using the hard lye soap all morning)

Hard lye soap, simple lye and lard with too much lye as a stain scrubber. 

Iodine.

[d3nni5]

Laundry Room:

woolite

[bcksknr]

     We used to have a product called "Oil-O-Sol". It was a pale yellow oil that I now realize had an odor of Linseed oil and pine.  When I got a sliver that was too deep to dig out, My mother would put on a bandaid , with the pad soaked in the stuff and by the next day, the sliver had "drawn" to the surface and could be pulled out with a tweezer. Worked every time. No longer available, I made up some linseed oil and thinned it with a little turpentine. It works just as well. Never got infected either.

[r_w]

     We used to have a product called "Oil-O-Sol". It was a pale yellow oil that I now realize had an odor of Linseed oil and pine.  When I got a sliver that was too deep to dig out, My mother would put on a bandaid , with the pad soaked in the stuff and by the next day, the sliver had "drawn" to the surface and could be pulled out with a tweezer. Worked every time. No longer available, I made up some linseed oil and thinned it with a little turpentine. It works just as well. Never got infected either.

We had something called Iodex for that.  Drawing salve with iodine in it.  It is still available but not the same as it used to be

[Frugal Upstate]

Asprin

[mountainmoma]

Fels Naptha soap. I still have this, but they have changed the formulation. Probably was used for stains, but the main use for me growing up was to wash with when exposed to poison oak. Still works for this, at least better than regulat soap.

[Knecht]

Workbench:
technical gasolene (cleaning, degreasing, dissolving various stuff such as beeswax)
hide glue (granulated)
graphite powder
soapstone powder
colophony resin
beeswax

[bcksknr]

     When I was teaching art, Fels Naptha bar soap was often the only thing that would get oil paint out of clothing. It was also great for washing paint residue out of fine brushes. it would often bring back a hardened brush to a usable state.

[TheRetiredRancher]

Workbench:
Soapstone stick for marking
Carpenter's pencil

[Oil Lady]

Thanks for all these awesome replies!

I want to respond to each of them as efficiently as possible. Here are the replies so far in the order of their postings.

ONE CAVEAT: I am not looking for suggestions on TOOLS. Instead I am looking for suggestions on CONSUMABLES -- the kind of stuff you use up and have to buy new all the time. Tools are things you will buy only once and (hopefully) have for a life time. But Listerine and ichthammol ointment is stuff you repeatedly run out of and have to buy new bottles/tubes of.

I always remember our medicine cabinet with the following too...


tri-fold sling  (actually under the sink)
ace bandage  (actually under the sink)
bandaids of various sizes
eye patch
eye wash cup
tweezers this is a tool
scissors this is a tool
magnifying glass this is a tool
razor and shaving cream, brut 33 or old spice
brylcreem (a little dab will do ya), dad actually was partial to Wildroot!
comb and brush these are tools
sea-bond

We always had  vics vapo-rub too.

   

These are good! I especially like the Vics Vapo-rub!

LAUNDRY ROOM
- Soap flakes
- Bleach
- Starch (for ironing)
- Kerosene (a good stain lifter, but keep it away from the dryer!)
- Washing Soda
-
-
tool

POTTING SHED
- Shovel, spade tools
- Rake tool
- Hoe tool
- Trowel tool
-


WORKBENCH
- 3-in-One Oil (brand name for a multi-use machine oil)
- Kerosene
- Turpentine
- Denatured Alcohol
- Mineral Spirits
-

I forgot about mineral spirits!  

To add to the work bench list,

My Dad worked in the oil field and he worked on the car and the lawn mover and such so he always had a waterless hand cleaner such as this to get the oil and grease off of his hands.

Sounds good --but it isn't "old school." Every modern work bench definitely needs this product -- and a bar of Lava soap too. But is there an old school method of de-greasing your hands that we can ALSO add tothe list alongside this Goop stuff?? (Not excluding the Goop from the list at all. But the main thrust of this exercise is to reclaim lost knowledge.)

More Workbench..

Boiled Linseed Oil
WD-40
Acetone

Awesome!  

Bag balm.  In the medicine cabinet, work bench, and laundry room (for after using the hard lye soap all morning)

Hard lye soap, simple lye and lard with too much lye as a stain scrubber. 

Iodine.

I have iodine already listed.

And I have definitely heard the wonders of Bag Balm sung by others.

Meanwhile, are you delineating several different categories of lye soap here? Can you clarify??   

Laundry Room:

woolite

Definitely! need that Woolite!  

     We used to have a product called "Oil-O-Sol". It was a pale yellow oil that I now realize had an odor of Linseed oil and pine.  When I got a sliver that was too deep to dig out, My mother would put on a bandaid , with the pad soaked in the stuff and by the next day, the sliver had "drawn" to the surface and could be pulled out with a tweezer. Worked every time. No longer available, I made up some linseed oil and thinned it with a little turpentine. It works just as well. Never got infected either.

Good to know!

     We used to have a product called "Oil-O-Sol". It was a pale yellow oil that I now realize had an odor of Linseed oil and pine.  When I got a sliver that was too deep to dig out, My mother would put on a bandaid , with the pad soaked in the stuff and by the next day, the sliver had "drawn" to the surface and could be pulled out with a tweezer. Worked every time. No longer available, I made up some linseed oil and thinned it with a little turpentine. It works just as well. Never got infected either.

We had something called Iodex for that.  Drawing salve with iodine in it.  It is still available but not the same as it used to be

Good info because is can help us all crack the code of what makes for a good drawing salve.

Asprin

I don't understand how I could forget such a basic product!   

Fels Naptha soap. I still have this, but they have changed the formulation. Probably was used for stains, but the main use for me growing up was to wash with when exposed to poison oak. Still works for this, at least better than regulat soap.

     When I was teaching art, Fels Naptha bar soap was often the only thing that would get oil paint out of clothing. It was also great for washing paint residue out of fine brushes. it would often bring back a hardened brush to a usable state.

Sounds like Fels Naptha is something a lot of moms would like to have on hand!

Workbench:
technical gasolene (cleaning, degreasing, dissolving various stuff such as beeswax)
hide glue (granulated)
graphite powder
soapstone powder
colophony resin
beeswax

 

Workbench:
Soapstone stick for marking
Carpenter's pencil

I'm gonna say these are NOT "tools" because they don't have the potential to last a lifetime as a one-time-purchase between now and your 90th birthday. You'll be buying more than a few of these over the next 50 years. So these are keepers.

[TexDaddy]

Goop is fairly old school, "America’s Premium Multi-purpose Hand Cleaner Since 1949!." 

http://goophandcleaner.com/

ETA... and Woolite did not show up until 1951. "Woolite dates back to 1951." http://www.woolite.us/our-heritage/

[TheRetiredRancher]

All it takes to make a good drawing salve is pitch from pines, spruces, and firs.  Any single one will work but the old salve we had in the medicine cabinet was a mixture of 4 or 5 varieties. The pitch from the southwestern Pinion pine works very well.

[AnnsSolo]

Cleaning closet (and Christmas0

glass wax - I have no idea what it's made of, but we used it to make window decorations with stencils, then mom would clean the windows in January.

[bcksknr]

     Bars of LAVA brand handsoap. It had pumice in it (hence the name) and was a fairly abrasive scrub. It took most any kind of soil off your hands and seemed to leave them softer as well as clean. Maybe worked as an exfoliant.

[Tyler Durden]

Workbench:  duct tape, shop towels.

[Cedar]

     We used to have a product called "Oil-O-Sol". It was a pale yellow oil that I now realize had an odor of Linseed oil and pine.  When I got a sliver that was too deep to dig out, My mother would put on a bandaid , with the pad soaked in the stuff and by the next day, the sliver had "drawn" to the surface and could be pulled out with a tweezer. Worked every time. No longer available, I made up some linseed oil and thinned it with a little turpentine. It works just as well. Never got infected either.

My great grandmother told me this one and it took me 20 years to try it, but it indeed works. Put a piece of raw salt pork (bacon) on the sliver. And it slips out. Works for fine cactus needles as well.

Cedar

[Jerryrig]

       Parafin wax, Butcher string, plaster of Paris. All in grandmas bottom drawer in the kitchen.     
Fantastic thread by the way!

[David in MN]

OK, I get to sound like a lunatic old guy.

Borax
Bar Keeper's Friend
Lye (I make soap)
Lithium grease

I tend to prefer naphtha over mineral spirits but you could go either way.

Nitrile gloves (because of that list)

[r_w]

Nitrile gloves (because of that list)

But it tasted so good when you dipped your hand in it! Man, that may come back to bite us...

Grandpa also has a bottle of Hoppe's gun cleaner in the shop for cleaning spark plugs and other things that got carbon build up. 

[bcksknr]

     Mom had a round tin "push-up" applicator of "Almond Stick" (I think that's the name). It was a waxy stick of some kind of solidified almond oil and it was used to hide scratches on furniture. It was a neutral color and worked on any wood from light to dark. She also used "Old English" furniture polish. It was an oily liquid that hid scratches as well. It is still sold and I've used it with 0000 steel wool to freshen an antique wood surface (my Victrola) that I don't really want to strip the finish.

[bcksknr]

   Next to the laundry tubs, in the basement, my Dad had a can of "4U" hand soap. It was about the size of a coffee can with a green labels. It was a soft paste soap, with some grit and it would clean anything off of your hands (this was well before GOOP). Booze was also used as a medicinal in our house hold. Brandy was always mixed in hot tea with lemon and honey for a chest cold. Blackberry Brandy was for stomach cramps and diarrhea. Whiskey was held in the mouth against an aching tooth for pain relief and also rubbed on the gums of teething infants.

[LibertyBelle]

POTTING SHED
[/b]- (I have no clue, but I figured this needed to be separate from the "Workbench" category)
-
-

Picturing in my mind what was on the shelves, here's what I can recall off the top of my head:

• Whatever was left over from the previous year's seed, tucked safely away from mice, in a round tobacco tin
• Tin of Corona salve
• Quart jar full of water with broken up cigarettes in it (odd, I know, but it was something about the tobacco keeping slugs at bay I think)
• Jute
• Hessian (burlap) bags
• Bushel baskets (most were of thin wood strips and didn't last many gardening seasons)
• Bark-a-roll tree trunk protection
• Epsom salts for magnesium deficiencies in veg
• Kerite (Karite?) grafting tape
• Blood, fish and bonemeal
• Bucket of hard wood ash
• Transplantone (sp?) rooting powder
• A bucket of used motor oil soaked sand for keeping shovels and other garden tools rust free
• Black Flag insecticide dust sprayer
• and a gallon bottle of liquid DDT 
• And when cleaning out grand dad's garage, found a bottle of lead arsenate that was once used for spraying the fruit trees 

While most of the items are safe to use in organic gardens today, the last three are hardly conducive for safe fruit and veg, eh?  But that's how we grew up and at least we KNEW what was being sprayed and dusted on things, because even big ag at the time was using pretty much the same products.  Yes, those items sound quite toxic, and they are.  But we really don't know what all is being used in the growing of conventional fruit and veg of today, and if we did, we might find that it may not be any better (and could actually even be much worse) than yesteryear when it comes down to the toxicology aspects. 

And in the kitchen, in addition to many of the items previously mentioned by others, there was usually a bottle of brasso for cleaning brass and copper pots/pans.   

[Applejack]

Very good list of things. I remember a lot of them. Two others I remember are corn huskers lotion and carter's little liver pills.

[Hurricane]

In our workshop area, Dad always had a big pail of machine grease. Similar in size to a 5-gal pail, but I think it was bought by weight. We used it for greasing the bearings on the tractors and other machinery.

I suppose the modern cartridges are neater, though.