BBC stars’ bra wars (so who will you support?)
Hand wash or machine wash: The big debate...
AS RADIO broadcasters, they are used to discussing issues that divide public opinion.
But the BBC’s Fi Glover and Jane Garvey can’t have been prepared for the controversy sparked by their latest hot topic: The art of washing a bra.
The question of how, when – and if – to wash bras excited even university professors, who weighed in to the debate triggered when Miss Glover joked on a podcast that she was washing her ‘upper support garments by hand’ because co-host Miss Garvey was ‘horrified’ that she didn’t already.
Miss Garvey, 54, who presents Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour with Miss Glover, said she was ‘delighted’ – but their light-hearted banter soon sparked a flurry of responses from other women.
While many agreed that hand-washing is the only safe way to clean delicate bras, others insisted ‘life was too short’ and a spin in the washing machine would do.
Meanwhile some women confessed to having washed them in the shower, or not at all. One in the machine-washing camp wrote on Twitter: ‘They go in the machine. But to be fair, they get really angry in there, and turn into Siamese Fighting Bras, and I have to untangle their claws and teeth when I take them out.’
Another told how she washed one in the machine only for a guest to later find it hidden inside a duvet cover.
Responding to Miss Glover, 49, on Twitter, Dr Rebecca Watson, an early- modern historian, said: ‘Really? Life is too short for doing that. Surely one of the great successes of millennia of human progress is not to have to hand-wash our clothes? Sorry ladies but you both need to get out more!’ BBC colleague Samira Ahmed even joined in with a popular suggestion: ‘Hands-free handwashing: You’re supposed to do them up, put them in a pillow case and then put them in the washing machine,’ she wrote. And Sarah Churchwell, a University of London professor, agreed: ‘I use a mesh laundry bag. Then line- dry. Makes life SO much easier! Gentle cycle, do up clasps first. Then hang to dry. Voila.’
Miss Glover and Miss Garvey’s podcast Fortunately With Fi And Jane has received praise and been described by critics as a ‘slightly tipsy’ version of Woman’s Hour.
According to Good Housekeeping, handsfree washing is the best method. It advises filling a basin with enough warm water that a bra can be fully submerged, adding a teaspoon of detergent before swirling it around and letting it soak for ten to 15 minutes.