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 What about Orvus? Orvus Paste is widely marketed to quilters as a sort of Miracle Cleaner. Some people insist that quilts and vintage textiles must not be washed with detergent because detegent is "harsh," and that the reason Orvus is recommended is because it's a "soap" and "gentle". Others go so far as to claim that a quilter will "ruin" her quilts if she uses anything but the magical Orvus. What a guilt trip.
Truth is, Orvus is detergent. It was designed to be body wash for cows and horses. Its value lies not in some secret, special ingredient, but in what's not in it - softeners, fragrances, bleaches and brighteners which may adversely affect fibers over time. (Fabric softener, for example, leavs a film that can attract dirt, and dirt is one of fabric's biggest enemies.)
The other truth is that the price of Orvus in quilt shops (averaging 75 cents/ounce) is six times higher than if you ordered it online from a livestock supplies shop. Just use your favorite search engine to search on "Orvus" and "horse" to find lots of suppliers.
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So what gives? Is Orvus really worthy of its cult status? If you decide to use it, what should you know? What else can you use?
Kay Lancaster responded to this question in an issue of Creative Machine's online newsletter. I reproduce it here, with many thanks to its knowledgeable author.
...Orvus,a/k/a sodium lauryl sulfate or SLS (same as sodium dodecyl sulfate) is an anionic detergent, not a soap. (If it were a soap, it would be a pain in the posterior to use in hard water areas, forming grey, insoluble scum.) Conservators use Orvus because it doesn't have the optical whiteners and brighteners and bleaches, etc., and rinses out fairly well most of the time, except in very hard water-- you need many, many more rinses in hard water areas. (Conservators typically use water purified by reverse osmosis or by deionization to get around the hardness problem.)
Because it lacks optical brighteners, bleaches, builders, etc., it's not going to foam the way you think of most detergents foaming, and it's not going to give that "whiter than white" look you get from commercial laundry detergents, and things may start looking dingy after repeated use. (Optical brighteners are compounds that absorb ultraviolet light and re-emit it in the blue wavelengths. Absorbing UV and re-emitting the energy may be good for long term light stability).
Orvus also lacks "antiredeposition agents", which means compounds that keep the dirt that's now suspended in the wash water from re-depositing in the fabric. You get around this with Orvus with multiple rinses... textile conservators may use 20 or more rinses.
Best pH for getting greasy dirt out of clothes is quite alkaline, about 10 or so, so you may have a tougher time getting greasy dirt out with straight SLS, which generally has a near-neutral pH.
There are some other potential gotchas to using it under some conditions: adding vinegar or other acid to rinse water (which you'd typically do with a soap, and might do with wool or silk) can force the water's pH down to the point where the SLS chemically bonds to the wool or silk fibers. If you treat fabric like a textile conservator, you can then rinse in deionized water till the cows come home and rain falls up, and you're not going to get it out of the fabric again.
Fabric softeners (and some of the germicides like quaternary ammonium compounds) are cationic detergents; they will react with anionic detergents like SLS in a reaction called "reverse saponification," which leaves a greasy, waxy goo on the fibers that's difficult to remove without using high pH (very alkaline) conditions or solvents. If you leave it in the fiber, the goo will attract more dirt quickly.
Finally, there are some skin safety issues. Wear gloves or use a spoon or point of a knife to handle Orvus paste, and make sure the solution is pretty well diluted before you put your bare skin in contact with it. It's a pretty good irritant to skin, and can cause allergic reactions, dermatitis and eczema for some of us lucky souls. It can also sting pretty badly, especially if your skin is damaged in any way to begin with. We used it in biology labs for (among other things) breaking cell membranes so we can get at the contents of the cells -- it can do the same thing to skin cells.
And if you're dealing with dry (rather than paste) SLS, wear a good dust mask -- it's a pretty powerful respiratory irritant, and can cause lots of coughing or choking, and even, in my experience, bring on a bad asthma attack that may require hospitalization. This shouldn't be a problem with Orvus paste, but may be a problem if you're dealing with the dry form of SLS. Be especially careful to keep it out of your eyes... it'll sting like crazy, and can cause some damage (if you do get it in your eye, rinse with lots of water -- lots and lots and lots of water!, and call your doctor.)
All this is not to say that Orvus isn't a good detergent, but that it's not quite as simple as "use this like regular laundry detergent and be deliriously delighted with your laundry forever", like a bad TV commercial. If you use it like a textile conservator would, it's pretty good stuff. If you start mixing and matching with other products or if you have the wrong tap water for your fiber (few of us have a copious supply of really pure water), you may not be so happy.
Okay, so... what are you supposed to use?
For fragile quilts, consider covering the "dusting" attachment of your vacuum cleaner with an old stocking and giving your quilt a good Hoovering; then put it outside on a breezy day someplace in the shade where the air can circulate around it. You'd be amazed at how much fresh air helps. Rather than hang our quilts, I like to drape them over a couple of our chaises which I've covered with a bedsheet. That puts less stress on the quilts, and since they're not flapping in the breeze they're less interesting to our dog.
In my experience, if the quilt appears to already have been washed successfully, and unless you have serious doubts about the colorfastness of the fabrics, regular liquid laundry detergent is just fine, as long as it doesn't contain softeners, fragrance or "colorfast" bleach. That means look for the cheapest "free" detergent you can find. And you don't need to use much. Frankly, since all that detergents do is help water rinse away dirt, unless your quilt is really grimy or looks like it may bleed, "washing" in plain water can give you really good results.
I used to recommend Biz to soak out dinginess, but they've recently added "colorfast" bleaches to the enzymes, and this can produce some very surprising and unfortunate results. Avoid Oxyclean and any other colorfast bleaches unless you test first. In my experience they can fade 1930s blues, and will do very nasty things to 1880s pinks and browns.
Synthrapol, a commercial-grade detergent used in the dye process, is excellent for fabrics that may bleed - be sure to use LOTS of HOT water and rinse like mad. You can actually rescue "hemmorhaging" quilts with a couple washes in Synthrapol. Most quilt shops carry it, but you can also get it online at Dharma Trading Company. Buy a gallon.
Speaking of bleeding....While dye "magnets"do work if you put a red sock in with your tighty-whities, they don't work on quilts. That's becayse they're designed to catch loose dye molecules floating in the wash water (for example, from that sock). But they don't loosen dye molecules which are still partially attached to the fabric. That's no problem when you're talking about two separate garments, but a real headache when your quilt is made of red fabric sewn to white. So although your quilt may not pick up anything from the wash water, once it's lying there slowly drying, those "rogue" molecules are going to start traveling all over your quilt again, and what looks just dandy coming out of the washer at 8PM may have you screaming in horror the next morning.
When all else fails and you're faced with a bloody mess you'd otherwise have to throw out, tumble-drying a quilt can minimize bleeding because it gives the dye less time to travel where it shouldn't go. But of course the agitation and heat of drying is not the sort of thing fabrics enjoy. Best to start out with good colorfast fabric, yes?
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