The P&G 1930s housewife challenge

I’m a bit late to the party here, though we did actually do this challenge quite a while ago. Then stuff got in the way (as it does) of me actually posting about it.

Procter & Gamble (P&G) are 80 years old (in this country, at least – they’ve actually been around a lot longer than that) and have launched a campaign Proud sponsors of Mums, celebrating how mums have helped them to develop their products. They set a challenge to  number of us to try to live life as a 1930s housewife for a day.

They sent us a package of materials to use in this challenge, including a washboard, some soap, some vinegar, some baking powder, a lemon (ours went mouldy, because we took so long to get round to doing the challenge – oops, housewife fail already), an old newspaper, a teddy, an Enid Blyton book, some wooden blocks, some face powder, weird pink toothpaste, blusher and cold cream. (And probably some other stuff that I’ve forgotten!) Oh, and they also sent a video camera to record the challenge on (sorry I only managed to get some of it – I’m sure I had video of the tea drinking and laundry, too, but I can’t find it on YouTube now – If I find it, I’ll add it).

There were a number of challenges to undertake and I’m afraid we didn’t manage to fit them all in, but we did a few and enjoyed taking part. I wish I could have totally immersed myself in the role and done a proper full day, but my life just doesn’t have the time for doing so. The challenges we managed to do were washing my hair, brushing my teeth with pink icky toothpaste, drinking tea (always a big chore *cough*), doing some laundry, washing some windows, playing with some toys and reading a book. We missed out washing the stove, the floor, doing my face and cooking (though we pretty much always do home-cooked food and quite often using local seasonal produce, too, so that wouldn’t have been such a challenge).

Washing hair

I had to wash my hair with soap. No shampoo. No conditioner. And, worst of all, no shower. Baths are not for washing your hair (unless you’re a small child, of course). They’re for relaxing with a glass bottle of wine, box of chocolates and a book. I do sometimes wash my hair with soap, when it’s getting very greasy, as it tends to dry it out a lot. And basically that’s what it did. Dried it out. A lot. Felt pretty horrible the whole day and like it wasn’t properly clean at all. Sorry, but I don’t think I’ll be saying goodbye to my shampoo and conditioner just yet.

Brushing teeth

The toothpaste was a pink cream and it tasted positively vile, burned my mouth and didn’t leave my teeth feeling clean. I guess modern toothpaste is something else I’m not about to turn down, either.

Drinking tea

The challenge was to drink tea without tea bags. With loose-leaf tea. They provided a one-cup tea strainer thing too, but I used one of my teapots and tea strainer. While I don’t always make tea in a pot with loose tea like I used to, it’s certainly not a rare occurrence. Must be fairly rare, though, as Rosemary was fascinated by it. Not difficult, though the tea wasn’t as nice as the sort I’d get. I used the tea cosy my mum made me (she made a whole bunch for Christmas for many members of the family) and was reminded of how fantastic it is to have tea kept hot under a tea cosy.

Doing laundry

Well, technically, we should have done all the laundry, but seeing as I have a constant backlog of at least three loads of washing, usually four or five, there was absolutely no way I was going to wash it all by hand. No, siree. Instead, Rosemary picked three items of clothing out (one of Eleanor’s dresses, a pair of Rosemary’s socks and a pair of Rosemary’s knickers). We put some water into the bath tub and stuck the wash board in there, then Rosemary had a go at washing the clothes – lathering them up with some of the ‘lemon household bar’ soap and scrubbing away at the board. The white socks still had dirt ingrained in the feet and Eleanor’s dress still had yoghurt stains down the front. The knickers looked pretty clean, but whether they actually were I’m not sure. I had a go, too, and did manage to get the socks clean, so yay me. Definitely not something I’ll be doing every day, though. Rosemary took the wash board in to school the next day, though, and told her class all about it, so that was a definite bonus.

Washing some windows

Washing windows required vinegar and water in a spray bottle (supplied), a cloth (supplied) and some scrunched-up newspaper (supplied, but we used our own, because I wanted to read the one supplied). This was very easy and worked incredibly well. (The video doesn’t actually show you how well it worked. Can you tell I’m not a professional film-maker?) I have honestly never seen the door windows so clean before. And I have cleaned them, as have others, with various cleaning products and window-cleaning wipes and so on. I never would have imagined vinegar and water would work so well. But the real miracle-worker, I think, was the newspaper. It didn’t truly gleam until it had been rubbed with newspaper. And the other benefit (see video) is that I’m much happier for Eleanor to drink some vinegar and water, than a bleach (or whatever) fluid.

Playing with toys

Eleanor and Rosemary both loved the blocks and the teddy bear (though Eleanor did take a bit of time to get into the latter). We read one chapter of the book and Rosemary decided that she didn’t want to read another the next night because it was no longer challenge night. The wooden blocks were great, though, and I think there is an awful lot to be said for such simple toys. (Not that we don’t appreciate the musical, French-speaking drums and cars that make siren noises and books that play nursery rhymes…)

We really enjoyed the chance to do this challenge and it was good to be able to involve Rosemary in it and show her a bit of history while doing so. Thanks, P&G!

Some other people who undertook this challenge were Mixed up Mummy, Mid 30s Mum, Mummy’s Shoes, Hot Cross Mum, Baby Rambles and Being a Mummy.