Let's Talk Laundry!

I was going to make the title of today's post, "Airing Dirty Laundry" but I figured that would bring in readers for all the wrong reasons, so I changed it up. Because today I want to talk about actual laundry. 

When I first left full time work at the radio, one of my goals was to experiment with a more frugal and non-toxic life. And one of my first projects was making my own laundry detergent. I grated the Fels Naptha bar, stirred in all the ingredients, added my newfound essential oils, and off I went to do the laundry. 

It worked for a while, but eventually we felt like our clothing was not getting clean enough, and the sweaty smell from our workout clothes just got worse and worse. I was still adamant about trying to be as non-toxic as possible, so while we did return to the land of purchased detergent, we tried to pick a better brand. No synthetic fragrances or all the other things I'd read about that make detergents bad for you.

But still...the workout clothes especially seemed tainted. And since we have both heavily pared down the size of our wardrobes, we wear the same items much more often, which makes it important that they are clean and smell like...anything other than sweat. 

I started researching and learned about stripping clothes. I think I've linked to it a time or two on the Saturday Six, but I'd never tried it. 

Have you heard of it before? Here is one of the articles I read that I found to be the most helpful, if you want to read up on it a bit more. But the bottom line is that our clothing can accumulate buildup. It can come from minerals in the water, dirt, oils, even laundry detergent! 

Laundry stripping is a process where you soak your laundry (which could be clothing, towels, sheets, you name it) in a tub full of hot water and a concoction of ingredients. You let it sit there for several hours, swishing it now and then, making sure everything stays fully submerged, and then you throw it in the washer for a rinse and spin cycle. 

I'd read the article, complete with its murky-water photos, and decided it was worth the investment of a few ingredients to give it a try. I picked some of the clothing items that offended me most in their aroma and threw them in the bathtub. I followed all the instructions, swishing everything around as I'd read I should do. 

It was disgustingly fascinating. Ryan and I peeked in on it all evening, seeing if the water was any nastier than it had been five minutes before. 

I did do mostly dark clothing, so some of the murkiness may have been a bit of the color from the clothing, but most of it was just straight up YUCK. 

When the soaking hours had passed, I sat there wringing water from the items, throwing them in the laundry basket and then hauling them to the washer to finish it up. I inhaled each piece thoroughly before throwing it in the dryer and everything smelled good to me. But I refused to believe it had actually worked until I took everything out of the dryer.

You guys.

I seriously couldn't believe it. Everything was softer. Nothing smelled bad at all. Even a couple of pieces that Ryan and I had actually considered throwing away, because they were so bad.

I folded up everything from that load and put it in its own location, so we know what's been done and what still needs done on the next round. But I'm definitely sold. It worked! I will be doing more loads with more of our laundry!

(Side note: the article I linked to above mostly blames homemade detergent for these messes. We haven't used ours in over five years now, and some of the things we had in that load we didn't even own back then. I'm not sure if the less-than-stellar town water has anything to do with it or if it's just all the sweat and grime buildup over the years. But what I do know is that regardless of the source, everything feels softer and smells better now.)

So how about you? Have any of you tried this? Did it work for you?