clean hat selection

it suddenly occurred to me after looking at miss k's speech day invitation that she may have been selected based not upon her looks. i say this after having a good look at the picture. the girls (there were 4 girls in the picture) were wearing hats. i think the girls were selected on the condition of their hats....as well as their whiteness. you see, every school holiday, i like to clean miss c and miss k's hats to bring them back to their original colour, white. it's to be expected that the hats get grubby with natural wear and tear through the term, but some girls' hats honestly look like they have been dragged along the dirt and dust. unfortunately for my girls, i like their hats as close to new looking as i can humanly make them, short of buying new hats. i did venture so far as to ask them if their hats were embarrassing to wear. miss k only answered to say that her friends say her hat just looks abnormal.
anyway, every holiday, i put their hats (they have 4, 2 each, one to wear and a spare) in this basin (big enough to contain them), pour in the drive and hot tap water and let them soak a little (until the water cools). when i come back to them, the hats are clean and the water has much to be desired - it's dark and murky. i pour that off and rinse until there aren't any suds left in the rinsing water and leave them to drip dry. when i finish, they look brand spanking new. i love it.
i did ask miss k if she might have been chosen on the basis of her hat and she offered that she didn't think so - "mum, if they wanted white hats, they could've photoshopped".
pity there isn't photoshop for cleaning the house and laundry and doing the garden. the hats i can handle, the rest of the house has to fend for itself - it always looks like a bomb has hit, and hit it bad. my house is chronic.