We all know how nice it is to find an ‘easier’ way to do household chores. I have put together an article explaining all the things I do to make the chore of laundry a little easier on me. This article will tell you what to do to save time, money, and your clothing!
For years I would just throw the laundry into the washer, paying no special attention to anything, (only separating whites, nothing else), and after so many washes, all our clothing looked ‘dingy’. To get your white loads their whitest, make sure to always use the hottest water setting that is safe for the fabric. If you have hard water, use a water softener along with your laundry detergent,. This will increase the detergent’s efficiency. When you use bleach, make sure not to add it until about 5 minutes after the wash load has already started. And of course never wash colored clothes with white ones! Spot treating and scrubbing the bottoms of socks, collars, etc…is a good idea too. A great , and inexpensive way to scrub out stains is to wrap a bar of soap in a nylon net, bunch it around the bar so it’s rough, then tie a knot in the net or secure it with rubber bands.
Stain removal is a huge part of doing the laundry. I never use to try to remove stains. I would jut toss the stuff into the wash machine, hoping it would come out! If you spill something on your clothing, you should always try to treat it immediately. Nowadays they have all those stain pens, etc…so it makes it a little easier of you are out and about, to pre-treat a stain. Here are some other ways to deal with stains too. Blot up spills with a clean, white, absorbent material, (towel, napkins, tissues, etc…)Do not over wet. Just use small amounts of liquid and blot frequently. Always blot, never rub or brush. Work from the outer edge of the spot to the center to prevent rings. Make sure to never iron over a stain. The heat from the iron will set the stain, making it almost impossible to remove. Never place a stained article in the dryer either. Sometimes you will notice brown or yellow spots that just mysteriously appear after you have washed your clothing. These stains are usually caused a beverage that contains sugar. They are relatively easy to remove when they are fresh, but become harder to remove with age. They will be impossible to remove once they completely set. To prevent these mystery stains from appearing, never store clothing that hasn’t been washed. It may appear clean, but there could be something on it that will later cause a mystery stain in your wash. Some common stains that are hard to remove are ink, blood, and baby formula. To remove ink you can use aerosol hairspray. Spray some hairspray on a cloth, and blot the ink stain. Repeat this until the stain is gone. Nail polish remover will also get out ink, but you have to make sure it is safe for the fabric first. To remove blood, try unseasoned meat tenderizer. It will work well on fresh blood stains. Rinse the stain with cold water, then pour on some meat tenderizer. Let it stay on the stain for a few minutes and then wash the clothing as usual. To remove baby formula try pouring lemon juice on the stain and place it in the sunshine for as long as it takes. Sometimes it will work in as little as fifteen minutes. If it doesn’t;t get the stain out completely on the first time repeat the process.
Did you know that overuse of fabric softener on towels will cause the towels to not be as absorbent? Try not to over do it with the softener. If your clothes are coming out of the dryer wrinkled, it could be that you are putting to much clothing in the dryer at a time. To fix a dry load that has come out wrinkled, wet a wash cloth, or hand towel, and toss that in the dryer with the clothes. Run the dryer again for a little while to get the wrinkles out. Instead of actually trying to launder drapes and curtains, you can just toss them in the dryer for a few minutes on your air setting to remove the dust from them? This saves you not only time, but the uncertainty that if you did wash them, they may shrink and not fit your windows anymore!
I dread putting the socks away! It seems to me that I save a lot of time sorting and folding if I take the socks out of the dryer and fold them together right away. The rest of the laundry doesn’t seem to take as long when I don’t have to deal with that huge pile of socks! When putting towels or sheets away, put the freshly laundered towels and sheets on the bottom of your stack when putting them away. This way you won’t always be using the same towels and sheets, and this will also make them last a little longer if they are not being used over and over again. After you put your clothes away, you can keep them smelling fresh by placing open bars of soap in between your sheets and towels in your linen closet. To prevent musty smells when storing linens, put fabric softener sheets in with your stuff. Make sure that you do let fabric softener sheets touch anything silk though.
A great tip that I actually got from a repair man about my dryer lint trap is that even though you may remove the lint after every load, a film forms on the filter that keeps the air from circulating properly. He told me to wash the filter with dish washing soap every so often, then take a stiff brush and scrub it while letting warm water run over it. Let the water run through to remove every particle of lint. You will see that when you start to do this the water will puddle up on the filter, and by the time you are done, it will be running through!
For those of you who iron regularly, here is a tip to remove the starchy buildup on your iron…run your iron over a washcloth that has been soaked with white vinegar. Place the cloth on a flat surface and run the warm iron over it several times, pressing gently, You will see all the brown stuff coming off of the iron. Now run the iron over a clean, damp cloth, wipe off any remaining starch so that it will not make a mark on your next piece of clothing. Try to do this often so that the iron doesn’t get a huge starch build up on it.
I have used all these laundry techniques for many years, all have proved to work wonderfully for me. Next time you are doing the laundry, or are trying to remove a stain, keep these tips in mind for an inexpensive, hassle free approach to the problem!
