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Laundry |
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Alright,
laundry is one of the fundamentals of collegiate life. Keeping up with your
laundry and doing it properly are very important. You don't want to end up with
the only thing you have clean to wear is a white shirt that is now pink because
you didn't know how to sort your laundry.
Many of us learned to do our laundry as youngsters, but others of us didn't. This isn't always because we were lazy, Mom just always did it for us. For those of you in this second group, read this page, before you start in on your first load. Don't be one of those freshman guys staring at your pile of laundry and scratching your head in clueless ignorance. Read the tags  This is one of the best pieces of advice I can give. Most tags will include
specific cleaning instructions. While you may know that it doesn't really matter
how you wash your t-shirts you'll be sorry you didn't read the tags the first
time you ruin an outfit that was clearly labeled "dry clean only." So,
read the directions on the tags. Sorting your laundry will keep you from having your entire wardrobe be composed of pink clothes that are too small at the end of the school year. The first step to sorting is taking all of your delicates (silks, fine washables, beaded items, etc.), and then reading their tags. For the most part you can hand wash these in a sink or in the washer on the gentle cycle with some Woolite. This simply involves letting them soak, gently scrubbing out any stains, and then pressing out any excess water. NEVER wring out your delicates, it will destroy them. Let each delicate finish drying according to its specific tag directions. I don't recommend hanging wet shirts, etc. on a hanger to dry (they stretch). You'll be better off spreading a towel on the floor and laying it on that. A lot of delicates will maintain whatever shape they dry in. Next, remove all of your towels, washrags, dishtowels, and your bathrobe. These have a lot of lint in them and will leave little fuzzy lint balls all over your clothes if you wash them with them. You can wash all of these items together regardless of color. One thing to keep in mind is to make sure you wash new towels by themselves as they have a tendency to bleed the first time they're washed. If you need to fill up a small load of towels you can wash your bed sheets along with them, it won't do them any harm. Especially dirty things like rugs need to be washed on their own. A lot of dirt will come out of them and you don't want any of that junk to get on your clothes. The same thing applies when you go to wash your sneakers. Remove the laces and wash them on their own or with a couple of towels. Make sure that you don't use bleach! Let your sneakers air dry, using the dryer will sometimes melt things you don't want melted. Alright, after you do your delicates, towels, and really dirty stuff all you should have left is your clothes. The basic groups you want to sort your clothes into are whites, lights, permanent press, and darks (a separate load for jeans would be good too). The whites you can throw in all together and bleach them so they're nice and white again. Remember that being white doesn't mean they should be in the whites load. A white dress shirt should be washed in a load of machine wash permanent press clothes. Your lights group, is whites that have other colors in them besides just pure white, and things that are light in color, like pastels, and grays. Put all of the lights in together and don't bleach them! Wash your darks the same way, with no bleach. Darks are darkly or boldly colored items. Lights and darks are washed the same way, without bleach. The reason you separate them is to keep dyes that may bleed from dark clothes off the light clothes. If you have a lot of red clothes you may want to separate them into another load of their own. They are notorious for bleeding. Products Bleach - There are two kinds: oxygen and chlorine. Both work by oxidation which is basically controlled burning. Chlorine bleach is actually a much stronger oxidizer than oxygen bleach. Oxygen bleaches are color safe. Chlorine bleach is a strong oxidizer. It will do a great job at keeping your whites white, but it will also bleach the dyes in non-colorfast garments, ruining them. Detergent - Try to use liquid, not a powder detergent. That way you can make sure the detergent gets absorbed as it doesn't have to dissolve, and you can use liquid detergent as a pre-wash stain treatment. double-duty as a pre-treatment for stains. Fabric softener - You know what, you'll never miss this product. While it does have some benefits, for the most part, its just another expense. Washing Try to get a front loading washer. These washers use less water and clean better too. If you don't know how to use the washer itself there should be printed directions somewhere nearby, usually under the lid. You can select the load size, water temperature, and the cycle (normal, delicate, etc.).
As far as temperatures go. Use hot only for whites, cold for your darks/reds, or anything else that bleeds easily, and use warm for everything else. The water level should be high enough to easily cover the clothes when they are normally loaded, not crammed in there. Add your detergent while the water is filling up. This will give your detergent a chance to lather up before you put the clothes in with it. If you are bleaching some whites, make sure you add the bleach before adding the clothes. Some washers have an automatic dispenser for bleach that automatically dilutes it before adding it to the washtub. This is for liquid chlorine bleach, not oxygen bleach. And please, don't put powdered bleach into the auto dispenser. It doesn't go there! It cakes up and is a pain to clean out. You can also put fabric softener in at this point. It has its own automatic dispenser as well. After the water fills up, add your clothes that you've neatly sorted and removed all the stuff from the pockets. Don't cram all of your clothes in one load. Its better to do another smaller load than one really crammed load. You're clothes won't get as clean. Drying The basic technique to drying your clothes is to throw them all in a tumble dryer after removing those items which can't be dried, and turn it on. You can adjust the heat and the length of the drying time, but believe me its better to use lower heat for longer than high heat. Don't bother with dryer sheets, I think you can spare the expense and put up with a little static-electricity when you go to fold things.If a piece of clothing still has a stain after you rewash it, don't dry it, rewash it first. Drying the item will set the stain. When the drier is finished, take everything out one item at a time and fold it, then put it in the basket. Don't just put the whole lot in the basket and fold things up in your dorm. Folding them now will save you a lot of time you would have spent ironing. The worst thing you can do is to leave your clothes in the dryer, they will wrinkle. | |||
