Zand, Zeep and Soda

Zand, Zeep and Soda has the sounds and rhythm of a nursery rhyme and could have been used in a story told by Dr Zuess. But this Zand, Zeep and Soda came straight from my mother's kitchen and was used by her eighty years ago. It was a standard kitchen set and at the time the soft green colour was popular and easily accessible.

The shade of green remained in vogue for many years with matching pot, pans, containers, breadboxes, colanders and ladles.


Originally the set came with a rack but has been misplaced through the years by numerous moves. 

We lived at the dunes in a small village along the North Sea and the fine sand was readily available.  The sand was used for heavy duty pot scrubbing and stained floors. Green Soap was a soft soap, which is still around today and readily available on the supermarket shelves. It was a general purpose cleaner and was used for most everything from kitchen, bathroom, floors, windows to laundry. 

The non-perfumed soap was gentle enough to wash your hair with and is most likely the base of many shampoos. Soda was also used for cleaning and laundry and even as toothpaste. Looking down the cleaning product aisle at the supermarket, I see some clever marketing and some expensive chemical concoctions which do the same thing. 

These three containers, a  reminder to return to just the basics.