Well it was my time to get into the poison Ivy again this year during haying season. Happens every year no matter how hard I try to avoid it.
I read about the different things that are supposed to kill the rash and #1 on the list was Clorox Bleach. Supposedly back in the good old days a person would mix it aobut 4:1 with water (so it didn't eat your skin) and do a quick rub down of the poison ivy rash followed by a good hard soapy rinse which would have the rash drying up within a few hours.
Well I tried it. 4:1 did nothing. same with 2:1. Cripes 1:1, slight tingling but barely any change. Full on right out of the bottle. Hmm, tingly with a very weak underlying almost definable as a sting sensation that lasted for maybe 5 minutes after I washed it off.
So what the heck? Is bleach right out of the bottle so diluted 'for our safety' it's darn near useless now? I can recall as a kid that whenever mom opened the bleach bottle everyone in the house knew about it within a minute or less and when she went to dilute it with water the stuff would make a fog as she poured it in.
This new bottle of Clorox is so damn weak I can take a good breath right over the top of the jug and barely smell anything. As a kid if I had done that it would have put me in a hospital with dissolved lungs!
Well it does explain why when I bleached my well the last few times it lasted about a week before the smell came back and I never noticed the chlorine smell plus dry tight skin after a shower like I used to when I mixed a cup or two with 10 gallons of water and poured down my well.
The bottle I have right now can't even do that straight on.
I read about the different things that are supposed to kill the rash and #1 on the list was Clorox Bleach. Supposedly back in the good old days a person would mix it aobut 4:1 with water (so it didn't eat your skin) and do a quick rub down of the poison ivy rash followed by a good hard soapy rinse which would have the rash drying up within a few hours.
Well I tried it. 4:1 did nothing. same with 2:1. Cripes 1:1, slight tingling but barely any change. Full on right out of the bottle. Hmm, tingly with a very weak underlying almost definable as a sting sensation that lasted for maybe 5 minutes after I washed it off.
So what the heck? Is bleach right out of the bottle so diluted 'for our safety' it's darn near useless now? I can recall as a kid that whenever mom opened the bleach bottle everyone in the house knew about it within a minute or less and when she went to dilute it with water the stuff would make a fog as she poured it in.
This new bottle of Clorox is so damn weak I can take a good breath right over the top of the jug and barely smell anything. As a kid if I had done that it would have put me in a hospital with dissolved lungs!
Well it does explain why when I bleached my well the last few times it lasted about a week before the smell came back and I never noticed the chlorine smell plus dry tight skin after a shower like I used to when I mixed a cup or two with 10 gallons of water and poured down my well.
The bottle I have right now can't even do that straight on.