Muslin Bag

It is very interesting in the way things have changed over the years. I recently read Giles Slade's book Made to Break , in which he chronicles the idea of "planned obsolescence". This is where products are made to be thrown away (paper products, personal hygiene products, containers, etc.), fashions are made to become obsolete (new patterns or styles), and/or gizmos are made to become technologically obsolete (electronic goods... computers). Historically this has led to times of great prosperity as workers are outputting as much product as possible. The roaring 20s and the modern booms are prime examples. The only large kink in this growth was during the "Great Depression" when these ideas quickly slowed and reversed as nobody had money to buy new products and used products until they were really worn out.

Recently, Michaela was given a Muslin Bag that an elderly couple picked up for us while they were in Vermont. A Muslin Bag is based on the idea of using every bit of a product, in this case soap, and not throw any of it out. These bags are thin fabric bags that you put your old soap scraps in. The Tussie Mussies bag that we were given was filled with different types of broken up soaps, oats and fragrances. It has a draw sting on the top to put your worn out soap into. Now, some wiseguy will think the soaps put into the bag were someone else's used soap, but this would not be the case. It looks like these were soap scraps broken in the factory or seconds during manufacturing.