It's 8am and young students gather in front of the flag pole and sing the national anthem. They line up patiently in their white uniform shirts that bear a blue tinge.
Indigo or Kram in different package.
Aunty Somsri, 65, recalled a similar scene in a primary school in Bangkok some 30 years ago. She sent her seven-year-old son to school with a white shirt and a light blue hue.
She explained that Thais in those days liked to put indigo, or kram, in the water while soaking white clothes for a while before drying them in the sun.
Indigo can help whiten clothes, but it gives off a bluish tinge. It can also counteract yellowing. Indigo is a natural dark blue dye obtained from the tropical plant indigofera.
"Using indigo is an easy way to restore old white clothes that look dull and dingy. If you apply indigo in the washing process, the white cloth will have a bluish tinge. It's better than wearing a white shirt that looks yellowed," Mrs Somsri said.
Indigo or Kram in different package.
Today indigo is rarely used, but some of the older generation still buy it to whiten their clothes. The new generation don't like to wear white clothes with a bluish tinge, she said. They prefer a shiny white look.
Popular kram brands available in Thailand now are Kai (chicken), Mongkut (crown), D Ars and Ling Tuea Luk Tor (monkey holds a peach). Kram comes in both powder and liquid forms.
Apart from kram, Thais also used detergent and laundry soap, or Sabu Krod, which was made of coconut oil and caustic soda, to wash clothes, especially whites.
For hand washing, you apply laundry soap, which was often a blue-white or white bar, on the dirt or stain and let the clothes soak for a couple hours. After that, scrub the dirty areas, wash and rinse. Then put the clothes in clean water twice and rinse before hanging them in the sun. Laundry soap doesn't have foamy bubbles like detergent.
Soap came to Siam in 1908 when Lever Brothers Limited was appointed as the personal soap producer for King Rama V.
Ordinary Thais came to know soaps when they were imported in 1927 for both personal care and laundry.
Detergent changed the way Thais washed clothes. Before soap, Thais used traditional methods such as mixing wood ash in water and soaking dirty clothes. Another method was swinging a small wooden stick to hit the clothing in an effort to remove stains.
In 1932, the first detergent brand — Pan-on — was introduced, but it needed to be added to boiled water to soak the clothes.
Shortly after, Fab detergent was produced here and sold well because it was more convenient.
Nowadays there are fabric softeners and specific products to wash white clothes. Popular detergent brands in Thailand include Attack, Breeze, Pao and Omo, with the detergent market worth 16 billion baht in 2012.
Detergent is widely used by Thai households now, though some people still use laundry soap to wash clothes, particularly white shirts and school socks. They feel it produces a better white colour than detergent, and won't harm their hands. You can still buy laundry soap at mom-and-pop shops or flea markets.
