You're soaking in it!

Mixing liquid watercolors with Palmolive dishwashing liquid in all my art classes this week makes me wonder about Madge* the manicurist. Madge pre-soaked her customer's fingernails in Palmolive's green dishwashing detergent and advised them "Palmolive softens hands while you do the dishes." How long did she hold her client's fingers in the detergent? Minutes? Hours? Days?

We are making some lively pictures inspired by Chris Raschka's illustrations for Norton Juster's Hello, Goodbye Window, using oil pastels, and then making monoprints. Detergent is added to the paints to keep them from beading up when painted on a scrap of laminating plastic. "Monoprinting is a process whereby only one print is pulled from the printing plate. "



Kids don't care about any of this, but they really like sliding the paintbrush around on the plastic, and stirring the paint until it bubbles. After that, someone has to clean the brushes, plastic, and paint cups in the sudsy sink. That someone is me, and my hands are "a crime," as Madge would say. After the first two days of the project, my cuticle looked great, my hands were soft, and my nails were strong. Day Three in the Palmolive, though, and my hands are back to their normal crime scene. Did Madge wear rubber gloves when she washed her own dishes?



*Jan Miner won her most widespread attention in Palmolive commercials as Madge, praising the gentleness of its dish detergent to a customer surprised to find her hands soaking in it. She played the character for 27 years, 1966-1992.