What ever happened to “Ring-Around-the-Collar”?
If the advertising of my youth served as any indicator, RAtC was not only the enemy of those wishing to be well-dressed, but also the very fabric of civilized society itself. Detergent after detergent vowed RAtC as their mortal foe and boasted of their ability to vanquish such an insidious phenomenon.
So what happened? We never hear of this dreaded malady these days. Has the zeitgeist left Ring-Around-the-Collar behind? Is it no longer a concern to people in this day and age of cheap Chinese textile imports? Or is some far more nefarious conspiracy at work here? Has Big Laundry decided to push Mountain Fresh Scent in lieu of actual cleaning power? Or, perhaps Laundry Science has simply advanced to the point where anti-RAtC features are no longer a brand differentiator, in the same way that the presence of ketchup packets is no longer a differentiator between fast food chains?
Inquiring minds like mine want to know.
Your Ponderable For The Day
I am going to go with the Laundry Science answer. If you recall, there was a time where they made a BIG deal about having “enzymes” in their detergent that did extra spiffy work. You don’t hear that any more as well, most likely because, well, they’re all using them. It’s like when car manufacturers stopped advertising Electric Door-locks because there aren’t many (if ANY) new cars out there that do not have them.
Science got rid of Smallpox, and we are about to rid the earth of Polio. In between, we silently may have destroyed RAtC, with little fanfare…