For some reason I get asked a lot, usually with a disgusted look on the person's face "you probably have to do sooo much laundry!?" I usually just stare back awkwardly, mumbling something like "yeah I guess so." I just don't quite know what to say because....um well...I have a confession to make... I LOVE doing laundry! And I guess I'm not supposed to like it according to...um...everyone??? I find it enjoyable and relaxing,weird right? I'm always excited to tackle a huge laundry pile. And you know what, our clothes always look fantastic!
I do laundry once a week over a 2-3 day period with these 8 easy (insert sarcasm) steps:
1. I go around and collect all the scattered clothes that didn't make it into the laundry basket (which accounts for about 95% of the laundry).
2. I make my color piles of colors, reds, darks, and lights. EVERYTHING gets turned inside out (to protect them from an accidental color bleed. As I categorize the piles I inspect clothes briefly and if there is anything that looks like it would leave a stain I set it to the side.
3. Clothes with potential stains that I've set to the side I spray with a stain remover, turn inside out and put it in its corresponding color pile.
4. I begin washing with the cleanest pile (so as to let the stain remover work its magic on the dirtier piles). I always wash cold.
5. I HANG DRY everything except underwear, socks and pajamas. If it's winter it'll take a full day or longer to dry since they dry indoors. I love summers because I can hang outside and sometimes get around to folding that same day!
6. Once everything is dry I get to the really fun part, FOLDING! The main reason for hang drying is because the high heat will bake-in any stains. Once something has been dried with a stain, that stain will be very very difficult to remove! Also I hear that it's worse for wash wear (that ugly faded look that old clothes get). I really hate wash wear! We do not keep anything that has too much wash wear.
As a side note: My love of folding is two fold (hahaha pun intended!). First I put on some Nextflix with my giant clothes pile next to me (this is pretty much my only time to watch real tv as I hardly ever have time to watch something other than a quick wind-me-down of whatever before bedtime). A lot of times (100% of the time) I'll have a beer or glass of wine with a tasty snack on my side. Second, I love to look at my boys adorable little clothes. I'm surprised I still think of their clothes as little considering it's waaay bigger then when they were babies.
7. As I fold I inspect clothes for any stains that did not come out. I set those to the side and I deal with them later (see below my secret stain remover method).
8. Implement my secondary stain remover methods if necessary. Proceed back to step 4.
And I should clarify, I love doing my kids laundry not ours. Phil and I's laundry is less than thrilling to say the most, ha!
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| The start of the fun! |
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| The pile is taller than my child! |
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| Unhelpful kitty buried in the undies pile : ) |
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| With socks as cute as those how could you not love doing laundry! |
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An example of how my kids leave their clothes,
probably my grease monkey Caleb wore this one, ha! |
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My stain remover of choice.
I recommend spraying and letting the clothes sit for 10min-2 hours before washing.
For stubborn stains I'd leave over night but not more than that because it might leave holes in your clothes (I've learned the hard way). |
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On the left you can see that after spraying and washing some haze of the stain is still there. My tougher stain remover method is using a drop of blue Dawn and spraying with more oxyclean. Then scrub with an old toothbrush. Let sit a couple hours to overnight then wash again.
This method has gotten 99% of stains out that I've dealt with. The only thing that I still have trouble with is pen marks, please share your secrets if you know how to get those out (and don't tell me rubbing alcohol cause that hasn't work that well for me although it has faded the mark but not completely erased it). And dear friends and family, if you are reading this please don't give my children pens to play with! Pens are my worst enemy!!! |
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It'g gotta be original blue Dawn, nothing else!
This stuff is strong, they use it on birds after oil spills! |
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Ta Da! Stain free!
The best feeling ever for an OCD laundry obsessed mama!! |
The last secret I'll share is to use color catchers like
Shout Color Catcher sheets when I wash my colors. Especially use these when you have new clothes that have never been washed before. New clothes have a higher chance of bleeding. These are pricey so I use sparingly but they totally work. They go in white and many times they'll come out the color of the new piece of clothing! The rest of the wash comes out unscathed. They are also good if you don't have enough clothes to separate into colors.
