Laundry miracle: Removing stubborn stains

You can now refer to me by a new name: Laundry Master. Let me explain how I earned this title. I just did something I've been trying to do for years -- I successfully removed arm-pit/deodorant/spit-up stains from a bunch of my shirts and my kids' clothes. I feel such a sense of accomplishment after being embarrassed by these clothes and prepared to either donate them to a charity or throw them out.

My secret is learning to mix patience with a product I've been using ineffectively for a couple years: Clorox Stain Remover and Color Booster. (Buy it at Costco for the best price.) (This is not a sponsored post for anything.)

I had seen my mother bring back to life a number of articles of clothing that had seen better days. She told me this is what she uses, and I just couldn't figure it out because I'd been using this same product to no avail. Turns out my mom knew a few tricks to make the product extra effective, so after a phone call consultation with my mom, I decided to try her strategy. (I forgot to take before shots, so you'll just have to trust that these items were totally yellowed before I worked my magic.)

So, if you want to get rid of deodorant stains, spit-up stains, or even dryer-set stains as the outside of the bottle claims, follow these steps:

1) Soak your color-sorted items in cold water with a cap-full of Clorox Stain Remover in the washing machine for about an hour.

2) Remove each article of wet clothing one at a time. Apply the Clorox Stain Remover directly onto the stains while the clothing is still wet. I used a tiny spatula to help me rub the Clorox product into the stains. Make sure the product is rubbed in well.

3) Let the Clorox product set into the clothes for about 10 minutes.

4) Add the clothes back into the water in the washing machine. Let it soak for 24 hours. Yes, that's right. Be patient.

5) The next day, run the washing machine on whatever setting you typically use. (I almost always wash everything in our house on delicate).

6) Pat yourself on the back when you remove clothes from the washing machine that look nearly as perfect as they did on the day you bought them.

I ran one load of white/light colored clothes and another load of darker items. Though the entire process took over 48 hours, I am thrilled to not have to retire all the white or otherwise stained clothing my family owns. It's a domestic miracle.

A laundry miracle

You might have picked up on the fact that I've been a little down-in-the-dumps regarding the spit-up factory in our house that is still producing quite well (though not creating new jobs/stimulating the economy). Finally putting on nice-ish clothes only to get covered in spit up again has made me close to tears on several occasions.

Then, to add insult to injury, I found that many of my shirts were mysteriously coming out of the wash with weird stains that I didn't remember. My frustration hit an apex when a shirt I had just purchased and wore one time came out with a giant stain smack in the middle of the front side.

What was causing the mystery stains? Was something wrong with our washing machine? Though I don't really want to spend the money on a new machine at this moment in our lives, I did get excited for a hot minute about getting a front-loading washing machine because I'm convinced the agitator in our top-loading machine isn't the best for our clothes' longevity.

Finally, after a recent load of laundry I realized that the culprit is, in fact, spit up. A shirt came out of the laundry with a giant stain right where Natalie had spit up all over me. Sigh. At least I solved the mystery. I can't believe it took me weeks to figure that one out.

Now, how to fix it? Pre-baby I've never been one to fret much over my laundry. I just separate my clothes into two piles, lights and darks, and just run each load on delicate because so many of my clothing labels recommend the delicate cycle. I'm not particularly clumsy or messy, so stain removal hadn't been much of a concern. A baby, though, complicates nearly everything in life, including laundry.

I brought up my dilemma with my mom group friends yesterday, and one of the girls recommended throwing some Oxi Clean in with my regular detergent. So simple! I already use a scoop of Baby Oxi Clean with each load of Natalie's laundry (though I do not use it on her cloth diapers), and her clothes almost always come out stain-free.

I ran a load of my most offensively stained clothing through the wash, on a cold cycle no less, and the stains nearly came all the way out. Another friend recommended hanging my stained clothes outside to dry rather than running them through the dryer to help further lift stains, and I think that did the trick!

Man, although a baby brings great joy into my life, stain-free clothing is a pretty close second on the joy-o-meter.

While I was shooting these pictures out on the deck, I also realized how well this year's round of deck planters have turned out. Geraniums have such incredible staying power, so much so that we also cashed in a Groupon for a local nursery and stocked up on some end-of-season geraniums on sale last month for the front yard. Next spring I'll just remember to plant geraniums even earlier in the front so we can enjoy them longer. Last year's mild fall meant our geraniums on the deck continued to bloom through much of November. Maybe we'll get to have a similar experience this year (cue statements about the problems associated with global warming).

I hope your flowers are still blooming and your clothes are stain-free. If they're not, maybe my little experience can save you some headaches.

Maximizing minimal laundry room space

Yes, it's 4 a.m. on a Tuesday, and I've been awake since 2 a.m., unable to sleep, so I figured I would blog. I'm not tired, just really pregnant. Finally full-term at 37 weeks. Baby could come any day now, but I would be happy for her to hold off until at least Dec. 22, my last day of work for a really long time! And now, a post on laundry....

In the nearly two years (!) that I've been writing this blog, I do not believe I've ever once written about our laundry room. Probably because attributing the word "room" to this space is too generous. Probably because it's impossible to photograph. But most probably because up until last month I didn't have any good ideas for laundry room storage.

Our laundry room is a glorified utility closet. It shares its space with our water heater and furnace. Its walls are unfinished cinder block and wood. Its concrete floor has pipes running over it; thankfully, the previous owners created some sort of elevated wooden walkway contraption that allows you to actually walk in the laundry room without stepping on pipes. The room is barely wide enough to fit a regular-size top-loading washer and dryer. And the space completely lacks any type of storage.

Well, let me rephrase. The room we inherited did come with one tiny organizational solution. One small gift left behind by the previous owners: a metal bar attached to the ceiling by two bungee cords, which is a nice place to store our extra hangers and drape a couple items of drying clothing. Side note: did you know you can donate your dry cleaning wire hangers to many dry cleaners? Whenever Matt goes in for a big dry cleaning run (we dry clean infrequently) I have him take an old stack of wire hangers back. We've tried this at several different dry cleaners and all have graciously accepted them. Look at the background of this photo, and you'll get a better sense of the kind of space we're dealing with in the laundry room.

With so little space to work with, laundry room storage has proven a challenge. For years we've had all our supplies piling up in the small corner wedged between the wall and the washer, a space that is at most just shy of a foot wide. I've bought and returned several different shelving solutions for the space, but all of them proved just centimeters too narrow until I found these half-large flat wire stacking shelves at The Container Store. I brought home two ($19.99 each) and after Matt spent about 15 minutes repositioning the washer and dryer closer together and closer to the far wall centimeter by centimeter, I finally had exactly 11.75" in width in which to squeeze these bad boys into place. At 16" high, the shelves provide the perfect amount of space for laundry room supplies, particularly large bottles and boxes.

You may notice that on top of the top shelf I have two different types of Tide detergent. Here's a reality of my new life that I know will become only more true when the baby arrives: I am doing more laundry these days. Because I did not buy an extensive maternity wardrobe, and because I especially did not buy much in the way of winter maternity clothing, I am doing laundry almost once a week as opposed to once every six weeks (yes, I have enough underwear to last a lifetime, so in my typical non-pregnant life I can get away with not doing laundry for ages). So, this means I've temporarily stopped making my own laundry detergent, though I still have all the supplies on hand for when I'm ready to resume. My guess is that won't be for a while because I know I'm about to start doing laundry every day.

I placed on the top shelf the items that I am most likely to reach for now. You'll notice that the shelves are currently packed because Matt and I have completed our pre-baby supply-hoarding for all household goods. Besides my two types of Tide (one is with bleach alternative and the other is free of fragrances and dyes for washing baby clothes and supplies), I also have on the top shelf:

• our giant box of Bounce dryer sheets
• an unopened tub of Baby Oxi Clean
• a Tide stain remover spray bottle
• white vinegar -- at the ready with a funnel for mixing my DIY daily shower spray/window cleaner or adding a cup to the washer when cleaning towels and sheets to de-funk them
• measuring cups
• scissors -- a great laundry room addition to cutting little stray threads and tags off clothes
• clothes pins
• dryer balls -- they really do work at reducing the time it takes to dry your clothes, and they work well on fluffing anything that's better off without fabric softener

No good way to get this photo. See how little space I'm working with?

One other laundry room must-have I should mention: a small garbage can. This is ideal for throwing out used dryer sheets, the trappings of the dryer lint catcher, and, if you're like us, holey socks.

My simple laundry room reorganization came at the perfect time. Not only am I already doing more laundry, and not only is that laundry pile about to grow exponentially, but also it's so much easier to reach everything I need over my enormous stomach now that items are in easy reach rather than piled on the floor. I know once I have the baby I'll be less interested in contorting my body to fit into the laundry room nooks and crannies. Even Matt agrees that this storage solution makes being in the laundry room so much more comfortable, and he doesn't have a watermelon in his stomach.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Gloves

So, for a while I thought of naming this post "Tip 70: Check your pockets" because this week I got foiled not once -- but count them, people -- twice involving items in my pockets while doing laundry. The first stupid move was having a (thankfully unused) tissue in the pocket of my hooded sweatshirt when I washed a load of whites this weekend. As I folded laundry I kept discovering tiny bits of tissue everywhere. My second and more painfully stupid mistake this week was leaving a pair of gloves in the pockets of my black wool coat when I took it to the dry cleaners.

Moral of the story: check all pockets before doing laundry or taking clothes to the dry cleaners. I know this, yet in a weekend rush I failed this test on two occasions.

The good news: I got my gloves back! The bad news: I had to fight to get them.

Here's the story:
Over the summer while in Venice I bought a pair of cute red leather gloves, one of my main souvenirs from our entire European vacation. Up until this weekend, I had been keeping these gloves in my coat pockets. Matt took a round of dry cleaning in on Saturday. Upon waking up Monday at 5 a.m. I leaped out of bed and my first thought was, "My gloves!" I can thank my Type-A personality that this is the first thing I thought at the start of the work week. I knew they were last in my coat pocket, and I knew that coat was at the dry cleaners.

In a mad fury, I got to the cleaners as quickly as I could, convinced that I would somehow get my gloves back. This attempt became more difficult thanks to a major language barrier. The elderly store owner was speaking to me in a mix of Korean and English, and then she went toward the back of the store to communicate with her Spanish-speaking employees. After about 10 minutes of explaining my very stupid mistake to the owner, she finally understood my dilemma.

The story, as it was communicated to me first, was that they went through my coat pockets and found nothing. I stood there and kept saying, "No, my gloves are in there. I am absolutely certain. They are expensive and I want them back." The owner insisted they found nothing, and I kept asking if I could just get my coat back. She kept telling me it wasn't clean yet -- of this I was well aware -- but I kept telling her I wanted to check for my gloves. Finally, she took a phone call, and I just stood in the entryway, waiting.

Then, a miracle happened. A miracle marred by deceit, but a miracle nonetheless. A lady from the back went over to her personal belongings in the corner of the store. A couple minutes later, she emerged with my red leather gloves in her hands. She said, "We found these in the trash." I said "thank you," took my gloves and walked out.

Amazed that I am reunited with my gloves, at the same time I am fuming. No, you did not find them in the trash. You found them in my coat pockets where I told you I'd (stupidly) left them. You lied about it and tried to keep them for yourself after changing your story. If you found nothing in my pockets as you originally said, how do you explain the miraculous appearance of my gloves (especially given the fact that I never in our botched conversation explained to anyone that I was looking for red leather gloves, so how did you know these were the gloves in question)?

I am elated to have my gloves back, seeing as their sentimental value trumps any monetary value associated with them. Looks like it's time, though, to find a new dry cleaners, and to always remember to check my pockets.

DIY laundry detergent experiments

I've wanted to try my hand at making my own laundry detergent for some time, but thanks to our Costco-sized Tide bottle, I didn't have a chance until a couple weeks ago.

Experiment, take 1
First I tried a recipe from my Clean Home, Green Home book. It is simply titled "Easy laundry soap," and it doesn't specify if that means liquid or powder detergent, but I should have realized it would be powder.

As the name suggests, it is quite easy.

Here's the breakdown. Mix together the following:

• 1/8 cup castile soap
• 1/2 cup washing soda
• 1/2 cup borax
• Optional: 1/4 cup vinegar added to rinse cycle

The instructions state you can add more castile soap if you aren't satisfied with the cleanliness of your clothing. Frankly, I just couldn't figure out what kind of consistency this soap was supposed to have when everything was mixed together. The castile soap is liquid, so it made everything a little clumpy.

I tested this out on towels we use for the dogs along with the dogs' bed covers. I figured if I failed I would have ruined some easily replaceable, inexpensive items. The laundry came out quiet clean, but there was no fresh-laundry fragrance lingering on the items.

Experiment, take 2
For round 2, I decided to change things up. I prefer liquid detergent, so I searched for a recipe for that. I found this post at a blog I read, More Green for Less Green. It directed me to this site, Tip Nut, and like the author of More Green for Less Green I decided to give the Recipe #1 a shot. I'm glad I did. This recipe is much better, it left my clothes with a nice fragrance, and it was kind of fun to make, too. And I better like it because I just made us enough laundry detergent to make it to next Valentine's Day.

To test this recipe, I had to buy a new ingredient: Fels-Naptha soap. I had no idea what this was, and before heading to the grocery store I figured I wouldn't find it and I'd buy some plain Ivory soap as the site suggests. I was wrong. Fels-Naptha was right there in the cleaning aisle, conveniently next to the washing soda, another new item I'd purchased for the first time last month. This land of DIY cleaners has introduced me to some things I never even knew existed. If you're wondering, Fels-Naptha has an intense smell, but it's an intense good smell, one that smells very...clean. It's kind of retro looking too.

Here's what I did:
Boil one quart of water while grating 2 cups of Fels-Naptha soap. I bought two bars of this soap because I had no idea how much would create 2 cups. Turns out I needed about 1/3 of one bar, so at this rate I could be in my mid-30s by the time I'm done with these two bars. Oh well.

Doesn't the soap look like cheddar cheese? I felt like I was about to make some mac and cheese.

Add the grated soap to the boiling water. Now it really looks like I'm cooking mac and cheese, right? Stir for only about a minute until the soap completely dissolves.

Transfer the water and soap mixture to a large bucket. Add 2 cups borax and 2 cups washing soda. Stir until combined.

Finally, add 2 gallons of HOT water to the bucket and mix well. (I learned that lukewarm water will make the mixture too dry.) This mixture is the laundry soap that will begin to take on a gel-like consistency. I almost needed a bigger bucket!

The instructions say you should use about 1/4 cup of this detergent in each load of laundry.

In the future, I will skip the powder detergent recipe and go straight for this liquid recipe. I am shocked at how inexpensive this homemade detergent is, especially as I walked by an $18 bottle of Tide while I toted around a couple items that cost a couple dollars each. I have leftovers of all products, and I know this will all last a very long time. At first I was also worried that even though I was saving money and being greener I would be wasting time, but it turns out that as long as you have the patience to grate some soap for about 10 minutes, you'll able to make some detergent that will save you several more trips to the store.

Tip 22: Fresh towels

Brace yourself: the next two posts will deal with exciting topics -- laundry and taxes! Thrilling, I know, but practical, and two items that were on my agenda yesterday. First, let's talk laundry.

A few months ago I started noticing that our bath towels were smelling musty. Anyone who knows Matt knows that one of his favorite past times is showering. At first I assumed that his multiple-times-a-day shower routine was the source of the funky towel smell. Then my towels started smelling funky. I shower no more than once a day, so I knew we had a greater problem on our hands.

I started keeping our towels in the dryer a little longer, figuring that I had to be doing something wrong at the drying stage.

Still, the problem persisted. Then I learned this little trick...

Tip 22: For the freshest towels possible, wash your towels in warm water and add one cup of white distilled vinegar to your laundry cycle.

After I started adding vinegar to our washer whenever we wash towels, the funky smell went away. Our towels stay fresh from when they emerge from the dryer until they're dirty again.

Now I keep a 5-liter container of Heinz White Distilled Vinegar in our laundry room. I bought it at Costco for $3.29 and it lasts a long time. This is a cheap, easy solution that has improved of quality of our showering life (and in this house, that's a big deal).

I realize washing anything on the warm or hot setting is frowned upon as being not particularly environmentally friendly. I wash my clothes in cold or cool water unless they have lots of stains, which is rare, and I've found that my clothes get clean when I wash them in cold water. But using musty towels was making me smell like musty towels for the rest of the day, and this was an area where I had to make a change.