Hi: Having "warshed" from kettle, rub board, etc. on to modern day equipment, lye soap to liquids, etc. I learned "many years ago" that that old bottle of shampoo on the shelf will take out "ring-around-the-collar" quicker than anything else I have found with just a minimum amount of "rubbing". It works great for other stains too...... <grin> Lorena Hi: I'm an American and married into a British family, and actually moved to England in 1978). Even in modern England, sometimes the plentiful marketing cleaning items we are used to in America were not available in Europe. As a new bride, I set out to the corner market to find a product to take the modern day, ring around the collar out of my husbands white shirts. No Clorox II, Zout, etc., available. My mother-in-law suggested I boil the shirts on top of the stove and put just a bit of washing up liquid (like our dishwashing liquid) in the pot. So every week, I would boil the shirts clean. When I returned home to American, my grandmother (who is Pennsylvania-Dutch) looked at me like she could hardly believe what I said. She told me they would boil their clothes in a kettle to get them clean when she was a small child. Being a modern women, I had never heard of this. I can still remember the look on her face when I told her how I would do the laundry. Anyway, fortunately in our modern warshing days (yes, my family still referes to this as warsh not wash) we have great products that help. I can report that England now has many of these items also. Still, if you want them really WHITE, BOIL THEM!!! Thanks for your time, Genny Baughman Payne Searching: BAUGHMAN...VANAMAN...BEAL...RARICK...KENNEL...WHIGHAM...BROADSTREET......MCF ARLAND...ROBERTS Mrs_Nice@juno.com