the bridging group or there can be three of the rings liked by two bridging groups and so on such that there can be six rings linked by five bridging groups it is to be understood that higher polymers can be used in the invention if they have properties analogous to the polymers within the range given above and the increased size or molecular weight does not confer an undesirable property to the extent that it makes the material unsuitable for use in the invention the polymeric cyclodextrins may have substituents in addition to the group that links or bridges two cyclodextrin moieties for example the cyclodextrin moieties may have one or more carboxyalkyl r cooh substituents wherein r is a lower alkylene radical having up to about 4 carbon atoms preferably such a substituent is carboxymethyl ch 2 cooh preferably there are two carboxymethyl groups per cyclodextrin ring for this invention a cyclodextrin or mixture thereof is combined with an optical brightener or mixture thereof under conditions which allow formation of an inclusion compound or mixture of inclusion compounds to take place this invention is not dependent upon the method employed for inclusion compound formation and any method apparent to a skilled practitioner can be used during the course of development of this invention it was found that a satisfactory method comprises mixing equimolar or substantially equimolar amounts of cyclodextrin and optical brightener in a solvent such as dimethylformamide dmf warming the mixture to allow the dissolution to take place and then removing the.