As happy as a lark, this delicious scent of cupboard and of swilled down tile floors, recall the washing days of George Sand’s heroes and the Parisian laundry maids. Between stacks of embroidered linen sheets on a lady’s festooned bed, lavender and orange diffuse a smell of lightness and neatness. A "lavandière", or laundress, was a woman who washed linens by hand, in a stream or at a wash house. The laundry was thrown into the water, rubbed with ash, rinsed, twisted and folded repeatedly. It was then beaten with a wooden instrument to wring out as much water as possible. It was then placed in a basket and taken somewhere to dry. In Paris, members of the laundress guild worked in dozens of wash houses, called “wash-sheds”, that were moored in the Canal St. Martin. Despite the hard labour, the laundresses, or washer-maids, were joyful, chattering and teasing amongst themselves.
Product Description
As happy as a lark, this delicious scent of cupboard and of swilled down tile floors, recall the washing days of George Sand’s heroes and the Parisian laundry maids. Between stacks of embroidered linen sheets on a lady’s festooned bed, lavender and orange diffuse a smell of lightness and neatness. A "lavandière", or laundress, was a woman who washed linens by hand, in a stream or at a wash house. The laundry was thrown into the water, rubbed with ash, rinsed, twisted and folded repeatedly. It was then beaten with a wooden instrument to wring out as much water as possible. It was then placed in a basket and taken somewhere to dry. In Paris, members of the laundress guild worked in dozens of wash houses, called “wash-sheds”, that were moored in the Canal St. Martin. Despite the hard labour, the laundresses, or washer-maids, were joyful, chattering and teasing amongst themselves.