Women's Stockings and Bleach Don't Mix

Women's stockings and bleach really don't mix. I have a friend who carelessly put her stockings into a laundry stocking bag to put them through a gentle cycle in her washing machine along with some tea towels. She always puts a capful of bleach through with her tea-towels but she doesn't usually put her stockings through with them at the same time. She was trying to do too much in too big a hurry and talk to me at the same time.

The cycle was on warm so that was something but the stockings were an absolute write off! And what really hurt was they were her most comfortable pair and she wanted to wear them the next day for a job interview.

The laundry stocking bag was the right way to go IF you have to wash them in a washing machine (not the best idea, by the way) but it's also not healthy to wash underwear with items that come in contact with eating utensils or food.

Anyway, stockings when they get bleached (well, this pair anyway) looked absolutely anaemic and the bleach weakened the thread so that they lost their strength so even if they hadn't changed colour, she may have worn them only to lose them at a very inopportune time.

I mean how embarrassing would that have been? Standing up at the end of the job interview, preparing to shake hands 'goodbye' only to find yourself hobbled like a horse with your stockings around your ankles!

Let's just say she would probably have made an impression and been one candidate the interview panel would never forget!

Mature Women in Stockings Today

Most of the older women in our society today remember the days when they first had to wear stockings. Most of them probably started out with a suspender belt and 'graduated' to wearing a corset or girdle. The stockings fabric used then was either silk or cotton depending on their financial circumstances and held up by suspenders attached to the suspender belt, corsets or later a girdle.

The difference between a corset and a girdle is a corset was usually made with stays made from whalebone sewn between pieces of the fabric and laced up at the back to hold everything in place where a girdle was made from an elasticised fabric to surround and 'hold in' a woman's stomach and bottom. The girdle was more comfortable to wear but still had and has certain discomforts. Girdles are still worn today by many mature women simply because they feel very uncomfortable and undressed without it. As the saying goes "old habits die hard".

Many mature women wearing stockings today do so because they feel very undressed without them if they are wearing a skirt or dress. No doubt they had probably been severely chastised at some point in their lives for wearing 'bare legs'.

The stockings worn by mature women in years gone by had other uses too apart from the social acceptability derived from being 'properly' dressed.

The shoes of the day were usually made from leather and the leather was not as soft and pliable as it is today. The process of leather tanning back then was more for longevity rather than comfort to the wearer. It would have been most uncomfortable to have worn a pair of those shoes without socks or stockings to protect against the rough rubbing of the shoe on the foot. The blisters caused by this friction burning would have hurt and would certainly be well remembered by our mature women wearing stockings today.

The other thing to note is today we all shower or bath every day but back then a bath once a week was what most of them had available to them. Water was not so readily available in most of the homes and often had to be carried in from a water tank outside. Keeping feet clean was and still is today, another reason our mature women wear stockings.