Hooray it’s time for What Do You Wednesday. Last week we had some great tips from royal readers on how to best save money on surface cleaners. Today, we encourage you to share your best laundry tips. Not just recipes for homemade detergent (but those would be nice) but also basic care tips that help your clothes last longer. I’ve talked a little bit on here before about All You Magazine before. It’s a fantastic publication that you can only buy in stores @ Walmart. It’s priced at 2.49 per issue; however you can get it cheaper online AND this month it has over $50 worth of coupons in it so you always make your money back. Even better, it often has money saving tips, recipes, and other great ideas throughout its many pages. I was thumbing through the newest copy (April 09) that I picked up yesterday and here are some of the tips given by All You readers for laundry care/upkeep (page 11).
Flip out. Turning your clothes inside out and washing them in cold water is the best way to keep color from fading. This maneuver is especially important with jeans which are often dyed only on the surface.
Loosen up. Don’t crowd your clothes when hanging them in your closet. Otherwise, they’re more prone to wrinkle, which means you’ll have to iron them – and that increases the risk of damage. Wire hangers also can harm the shoulders of your shirts, so it pays to invest in better quality plastic, wood or padded hangers.
Soften with caution. Fabric softers can leave spots on your clothes. Dilute liquid softener before adding it to your wash, but don’t use more than you need.
Unbutton. Don’t put clothes in the wash when they’re buttoned up. All the tugging in the machine weakens the threads attached to the buttons and makes it more likely for them to come loose or pop off.
If you’re interested in subscribing to All You, you can simply click the Amazon widget on the sidebar and get yourself signed up for either a 1 or 2 year subscription (at only $1.66/issue, what a deal!). I promise if you like my blog, you will LOVE this magazine!
So what about you? What do you do to help keep your clothes looking fabu wash after wash?
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I have always struggled with my husbands white underwear and socks always turning dingy gray long before they are worn out and ready for the rag bag. I used plenty of bleach to no avail. Now I have solved this by soaking a special load of “keep whites” in a quarter cup of Oxi-Clean and super hot water, usually overnight. I separate my white pile into “dingy, always will be dingy whites”; “keep whites”; and “white towels that I bleach but don’t mingle with dingy whites and don’t use fabric softner so they are more absorbant”. I bought new undies and socks for my husband last October and they are STILL as white as the first day of service.