The time is right to bring back the handkerchief! When I was a kid, we had hankies in our pockets, and businesspeople stuck them in their suit pockets. Let’s make them fashionable again! Bruce Springsteen of course never thought they went out of style:
If you are, like me, “enjoying” seasonal allergies right now, you know how many tissues you can go through! And as a biology friend described it once, back to school is a time when everyone can get together and share the bacteria they encountered over the summer, so covering one’s mouth when sneezing is only polite.
But most tissues in North America are from clear-cut forests. (Greenpeace offers a guide to percent of recycled material in various brands.) Hankies to the rescue! Use ‘em, clean ‘em and use ‘em again.
I found these organic flannel hankies that should be a lot softer on your nose than those chlorine-filled dead trees!
Or you could go with the bandana look of course. These guys even sell some with your fave baseball team logo.
Hankies have other uses too. You could keep an extra in your pocket to:
- Use as a towel in restrooms. More trees saved!
- Sneeze into on the subway. Your fellow passengers will appreciate it.
- Offer to a stranger in need. I would swoon, swoon I tell you, if someone gallantly offered me their (clean) handkerchief.
- Wave down a taxi or a friend.
- Dab a little lavender oil onto and keep in your pocket for moments when the air around you has that “not so fresh” feeling.
- Use instead of paper napkins (Another tree saved! You’re a hero!)
- Pick up a date in certain clubs (you too know they never went out of style!)
- Keep hair and sweat out of your eyes while you’re rocking out. Clearly.
What else could you use a hankie for? Let us know.
Then get out your hankies! Sport them with pride!
No related posts.
Bev says:
Hey Polly – this is a great site and this article in particular made me geo to thinking…. I mean as a little girl I had a pretty little hankie holder, all embroidered etc, which housed about 75 wonderfully decorated and personalized with my initials pretty little hankies, and we always had a clean hankie in our little purse or just in our pocket every day. My mother washed hankies and my dad’s “bigger” handkerchiefs every week – we never thought anything about it. And we knew whose were whose because of the initials on them. It was a great way to learn how to embroider as well! And I have to say that my step dad to this day still uses his over a facial tissue as he swears they do not fall apart!
But something else that my daughter IS using now though is still another step to a softer world… they are called “luna pads” and are made out of beautifully designed soft flannelette type material, which she uses and washes in a special bag just for them monthly. Certainly once one gets over that initial “eewww” factor of washing them, the cost factor alone is amazing, not to mention that they are actually way more comfortable than the things that are for sale at the store and do protect just as good. And I’m proud to say that my 1 1/2 yr old grandson is still in cloth diapers and has been since birth, and he has never had the “blow outs” like the disposables often create!
I say yes, let’s get back to cloth items!
September 10, 2009, 9:27 amHeather Racano says:
I LOVE this post Polly. Thank you! Whenever family comes over for dinner I make a point of pulling out the good china and my cloth napkins. Every time I do it I hear “no, no, don’t pull out the napkins just for us.” My response “Why not YOU? You’re worth it!” As much as I truly believe in my response, I have alterior motives… the cloth napkins are environmentally friendly and don’t cost me more than washing them each time I pull them out. They make the family feel special and I save a few pennies. Everybody feels soft in the end.
September 10, 2009, 2:42 pmPolly says:
Great to hear this from both of you! Bev, looks like I should do a post on feminine hygiene products!
September 10, 2009, 11:11 pmZara Lawler says:
Also they are good for crying! I mean, part of the idea of being softer I’m sure is to yield less crying…but when the old stress habits kick in and one needs a good cry, why not use a hankie purchased for 40 cents at an antique store instead of a nasty kleenex, or even worse, toilet paper? Or one’s sleeve?
September 13, 2009, 12:54 pm