What: Damaged 1940s dress. (A Doris Dodson Original!)
Origin: Long ago thrifting extravaganza.
How long kept: My college friend S/PDX comes to mind. It has been a mighty long time since we would have last thrifted together. Late 80s?
Usage: See Confession.
Why kept: Mostly, Storage Boxes are Evil, and Out of Sight, Out of Mind (the reason that Storage Boxes Are Evil).
Destination: Down the trash chute...sopping wet.
Confession: Earlier, I
got rid of an oddly stinky clothing item, blaming the musty smell on vintage dry-cleaning fluid or cigarette smoke.
The smell seemed to stick to a few things in the Evil Storage Box, but to readily wash out of the washable items, and to air out of others.
This was one of the things I had saved. Frankly, I had forgotten that I had held onto it, until I found it in my closet today. I thought it has been aired out, but it still stank.
Confession, part deux: How do I describe the scent? It was kind of like lighter fluid gone bad.
And I mean gone bad like lighter fluid you might find, slightly congealing, in a bucket. In a dark corner of Stephen King's basement.
Confession, continued: I had never really inspected this dress all that closely. It was a sundress, with straps that buttoned to the bodice. The zipper was broken beyond repair; the dress had been mended and taken in, both sloppily. There were splotty rust stains on the bodice.
Inspired by
Marisa, I figured I could make a cute pillow with the unstained fabric, harvesting the lace for another purpose, and set about washing the dress by hand.
One of the straps had a stain I had never noticed. It made me question whether the "rust stains" actually happened when the last owner of the dress had been badly injured in a knife fight.
Son of confession: Laundry is my favorite home art. And I'm known for my stain removal prowess. I put this in a washtub and washed a ton of dry cleaning fluid out of the dress.
I soaked it with an enzyme tablet.
I washed it again and rinsed it copiously.
It smelled so terrible -- far worse when wet -- that I decided I couldn't even wash it with my laundry. (Those enzyme tablets not only work on almost anything that isn't supernatural, but they leave a very strong scent of "American Laundry Detergent" behind. No such luck.)
It would have to go to textile recycling on Monday. I hung it up to dry, started a load of laundry, and went to the grocery store.
When I came home, about 40 minutes later, I walked into my apartment and was hit by the lighter fluid smell.
Confession, part V: Green cred be damned. In a New York second, this thing was in a (recycled) plastic bag and down the trash chute.
30 minutes later, I have sprayed the tub the dress was hanging over with essential oils in water. And boiled some water with cinnamon and almond extract added. I still can't tell whether the scent is gone or not.
Like a ghost.
