Vintage Decorative Laundry Detergent Dispensers 1930s-1950s and Other Vintage Soap Stuff

Not real sure why most of these dispensers were made of wood...they got splashed with water, bluing, starch, bleach and who knows what else? It did give them a great shabby chic appearance though. I love the little wood knobs on the top that lift the lids up to add the detergent into the box as well as shake it out into the wash tub. Do you remember the ironing day sprinkler? This one is a bottle painted red with cute Mexican motif decal around it. Did you know that liquid bluing whitens fabric with a dye called "Prussian Blue", which is a chemical named ferric hexanocyanoferrate?

Linit is a laundry starch and there are various bar soaps, P&G, Ivory, Fels-Naptha, Bon-Ami. There's also a red and white shaving brush with a shaving mug from Old Spice, and a round bar of shaving soap in the bottom for grand-dad to lather up!

In the cubbies below are Boraxo, Sani-Flush, Bel-Dine, Bon-Ami and other notable soaps and cleansers of a by-gone era....however some are still on the scene today. Note that laundry soap dispenser on the right is a metal one with a really nice design.

Electricity and Reddy Kilowatt: Is cooking with Electricity Safe and Fast????

This little lightning bolt fellow, Reddy Kilowatt, was a spokesman for the electricity industry for over 60 years. Here he is speeding down a rollercoaster, probably the ride at either Lagoon or Saltair in Utah, to show us how fast cooking with electricity can be. OK, I think it had a lot more significance in the 1950s than it does now...Microwave ovens were not an option then.
Here's and ad with Reddy dressed like a policeman to emphasize that if you do indeed like to be "Safe", then you'll like Electric Cooking--why??? Because it is Completely Safe!
Not only is electric cooking automatic, it is "almost" like having a servant, except that it is more reliable than servants.....
Here's Reddy dressed as a cowboy in hat and boots and lasso and I don't quite get the gist of this ad at all, but I think the stove is very cool!

Collection of Vintage Kitchen Housekeeping Toys

For several years I have been collecting Wolverine tin lithographed "housekeeping toys" which were made from the 1930s to the 1950s. They were made in a number of scale sizes. They hearken back to an age when kitchen toys looked just like your Mom's real versions did and were toys with which little girls played house and became familiar with the "tools of the trade" of housekeeping. These are difficult to come across at yard sales here in Salt Lake City, so I search for them online. You might enjoy searching for them yourself!. My grandchildren ask for me to get them down to play with, and we enjoy having tea parties and cooking and baking "pretend" cookies or soup. I didn't have these toys as a child but always wished for them.

Close-up details on the cupboard door. I love these retro magnets!

I love these Pyrex Bowl magnets. The "polka-dot homemaker" and her matching kitchen are suffering the side effects of the Pyrex "Primary Colors Bowls"! I found the salt and pepper shakers in Lehi, Utah at "The Nook & Cranny". They fit the curved spice holder that is on each door. I have 2 "Griffith's Spices" bottles on the other door.

This cabinet has a pull-down bin!

This shows the bottom shelf of the new cabinet, and the pull-down bin feature on the bottom. I visualize a 10# bag of flour on the left side, and a 5# bag of sugar in the smaller side. I have 2 sets of Pyrex Primary Colors refrigerator dishes and some "Kitchen Aids" Hazel Atlas bowls, in turquoise and red.

Kitchen Photos

My ideal kitchen cupboards would be the nifty-fifties white metal ones with the chrome door pulls. I now have 4 of them and this is the newest one with 4 shelves and a pull-down bin at the bottom. I am thinking the bin would actually be a good place to store the red and green-handled kitchen gadgets, cookie cutters, and other small "junk-drawer" treasures.

"I'm Blogging!" or "My Very First Entry!"

Just getting started with the blog with the encouragement of Kelly Ballard at Second Hand Chic. Here's a link to her blog: Second Hand Chicks.
I love kitchen collectibles from the 30s thru the 50s...Hope you enjoy my blog! The cute metal kitchen cabinet on the left is from Kelly's store! It is a perfect fit for my kitchen, and a great display cabinet for my dishes and trays and kitchen gadgets, some of which are displayed below.