Laundry, or How to Look OK With Little Effort

Subtopics: Stains, pet hair, keeping clothes new.

Stains: Most food and grease stains will come out if you spot treat with some Dawn Dishwashing Liquid. The only problem I've run across with this is it foams if you treat more than a few spots. If you put liquid fabric softener in with the load, it keeps the foam down. (Lucille Ball and The Brady Bunch could have used a half a cup of fabric softener on a couple occasions. If you're ever in a runaway bubbles situation, USE that fabric softener!)

If you have a pre-soak function on your washing machine, and a load of stained clothes, putting about 1/2 to a cup of Dawn, non-chlorine bleach (as directed), and fabric softener (as directed) in while the machine is filling, but before you put in the clothes, letting it mix a little, load it, then let it run will get out all but the most stubborn stains. (Sorry, can't help with those!) Do run the clothes for a wash cycle afterward though!

If you think your clothes may bleed or leak dye, get a dye magnet. Woolite Dye Magnet, Shout Color Catcher, and Carbona Dye Grabber Cloths are disposable one use items, packaged like fabric softener sheets. Carbona Dye Grabber Reusable Terry Cloth is a multi-use product.

Your best bet for dye accidents in Synthropol, a detergent that's sold at places that sell dying supplies. It will get out any loose dye. Most of the dye companies have color remover products that work, but they will strip the original color too, and they can be harsh.

Weird smells: 1/2 to 1 cup white vinegar or baking soda (do not mix) in the wash, rinse twice if needed.

Pet hair: Use liquid fabric softener. It will make your clothes less static-y, which will help keep pet hair from sticking.

Dry small loads of clothes. Drying small loads lets the clothes move in the dryer which means more hair will come off of your clothes. This might not be the most energy efficient, but overloading your dryer isn't either. (Overloading means clothes will wrap into a ball, the outside will be dry, and the inside will be wet and covered in lint.)

Keeping your clothes new: Use the coolest water you can.

Use bleach and color safe bleach sparingly, this includes detergents with whiteners, bleach alternative, or heavy duty detergents.

Experiment with using less detergent.

Use lingerie bags for your delicates. Your fancy underwear and bras will last longer. Hang dry if at all possible.

Use lingerie bags, or zipper pillowcases for your attack clothes. If your clothes have hooks, zippers, velcro, or anything else that catches on other clothes, put them in a bag, so they can't do any damage. Consider drying them alone, or hang drying, because they'll need to come out of the bag for drying. Also, if something makes huge amounts of fuzz every time it's washed, consider a zipper pillowcase. Your washer isn't designed to deal with lots of fuzz, and can clog (expensive!!). Your dryer is better designed, as long as you clean the lint filters (overly fuzzy stuff, check the filter halfway through), and check the vent hoses. Zipper pillowcases/pillow protectors are available at places that sell bed linens, like department stores. Go for the cloth ones that are a cotton blend.

Don't over-dry, it stresses the fabric.

If you can, partially hang dry your t-shirts, things that wrinkle, and more delicate clothes. To partially hang dry, dry for 20-30 minutes in your dryer to get the fuzz off and get rid of that hang dry feel, pull out immediately, then put on hangers or a drying rack. You can avoid a lot of ironing by hanging dress shirts while they're warm and damp.

Anything that you can, fold or hang as soon as the dryer stops. You'll avoid a lot of wrinkles. (I fail on this one too often.)

If you have handwash wool items, look into one of the new products like _Soak_. These new wool washes mean you can avoid hand washing a delicate item, and work better than Woolite. You can use them by filling the washer, adding the wool wash, mixing a bit, adding your clothes (pushing them underwater if necessary), soaking (not agitating!!) as directed, and then using the spin cycle to get the water out. Dry flat or hang dry, whichever seems best. (Small items like socks generally don't stretch when hang drying, sweaters do...)

Caring for your pots and pans, or applied chemistry

All right, we've all had that moment when we're gaming or reading and we've forgotten that we're also cooking. Now there's a burned pot, and elbow grease doesn't seem like a great option. What do we do?

1) Hot water and baking soda, simmered gently. Remove any loose stuff. Do not scrape or scrub. Fill the pot with hot tap water, covering the burnt food, and give it a good shake of baking soda (I don't measure, 1/4-1/2 cup?) and set it on the stove. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down to low, and simmer for 20-30 minutes. (Set a timer, you don't want to let it boil dry, that's why you're here!) You can either turn it off, and let cool, or pour the water off and wipe it out immediately. This should take care of most stuff, and can be repeated. There's no reason to scrub hard. If stuff isn't loosening up, go to 2.

2) If the baking soda doesn't work, go to the opposite pH. Hot water and vinegar, simmered gently. About a half cup of vinegar to a pot of water. Simmer as above.

I really can't say this enough. Let the boiling, pH altered water do the work. You can do several repeats one after another. You can do them several days in a row. You can simmer for longer, if you keep an eye on it. Just knock off the loose stuff in between.

3) Now that the burnt stuff is gone, you may have weird shadow stains on your pots and pans. Metal polish will fix it. I like Barkeeper's Friend. Wet your pot, sprinkle on some Barkeeper's Friend, rub gently with a wet cloth or sponge. Again, you shouldn't have to scrub. Rinse. Rinse really well. When dry, you shouldn't see any stains. Repeat if you need to.

Now your pots should all be clean and shiny!

BTW, these all work on old burnt on stuff. If you're setting up a new place, and you're doing it on the thrifty side, you can rescue that pot that's solid, but ugly. If it's ugly on the outside too, fill a stockpot with water, put in about a cup of baking soda, set the ugly pot in the stockpot, and simmer.

Why?

Why am I starting this blog? Because I'm a second generation fan, many of my friends and associates are fans, and we share many of the same needs and knowledge gaps when it comes to cleaning and organizing our homes.

Another reason is I believe in lazy cleaning. I don't want to scrub, I don't want to work hard, I want to figure out how to get things clean without too much effort.