It will come as no surprise to anyone to learn that I hate housework. I've tried really hard to make peace with it, but the serenity of the chore just won't come.
Laundry is perhaps Queen Boring in this most extensive realm of Tedious. If you turn your back on her for a minute, she's got ambitious and tried to annex the hall and the landing.
There are five of us in the untidy and slightly smelly Palace of Bundance and they all, apart sometimes from Boy Three, want to wear clothes most of the time. Now that's a lot of garments - one day's worth makes a really big pile. Add that to the bedding, towels, tea towels etc and you get a heap you can't see over.
Plus - and I'll leave you to work out who is responsible for which - often the garments are covered with curry, grass stains, mud, beer, juice, ice cream, cooking mess, paint and tea. Of course a large number of the smears are unidentifiable and, frankly, I'm quite happy to keep it that way.
However, the people behind the Vanish Oxi Action stain removal system got in touch and asked if I'd like to try it out. For a brief moment, I forgot about my domestic sluttery and was miffed. "Why me? It's not as if I've got lots of stains... Oh, hang on a minute. Yes I do."
So I said yes please.
The Vanish products include gel "with a newly designed gel dispense system", powder and instant action spray. There's also an A-Z guide to stains with instructions depending on how revolting your family have been that day.
I had planned on a stain-by-stain exploration of the products and a look at the results. Only, once again, I forgot about my domestic sluttery. There are stains, no doubt, but I simply don't have the time - or inclination - to examine each sleeve or trouser leg for besmirchment.
There's is a system - it's called bung it all in and let's see what happens. So there are stains, but inevitably they have been fixed by the laundry process by the time I spot them - like this tea stain.
So what I need is something that I can do - spray, rub gel in or soak - before bunging it back in the wash again. And that's where the Vanish products really do work. How I know they work, is that I've failed utterly to find the garments at the other end of the process. This is because they no longer have dirty marks on them and have been folded (possibly ironed, but it's not likely) and put away.
The other great application for the Oxi Action powder that works especially well for me (and others who have better things to do than examine every stinky shirt) is to bung half a scoop or so into each wash which "helps you get rid of the stains you miss". Or, in my case, helps get rid of the stains I know are there but I just don't want to look at.
These products really do appear to make my kids (and husband's) clothes less manky... and you can't say fairer than that.
I was sent some products to review and compensated for my time, but the views (and dirty marks) are all my own.
PS Because it seems somehow relevant. One of my favorite Scottish words is 'slitter' which is one who is unable to eat or drink without spilling it down their front. Or the the actions of a slitter, inevitably resulting in mess.