To help you avoid wasting time on fake laundry hacks, we rounded up the best tips that actually work and will help you do laundry like a pro. They’ll save you money and time, make your clothes look better and last longer, and prevent potential laundry mishaps. Distilled white vinegar is nearly essential for laundry to look clean and bright each time it comes out of the washer. Here are a few ways to use it:
Add 1 cup of vinegar to the final rinse to remove detergent residue that leaves white and colored fabrics looking dull and feeling scratchy. Add 1 cup of vinegar to the rinse cycle will help make mildew and body odors disappear from clothing. Use vinegar to help remove marks from hemlines that you’ve changed again and again. Add a couple of cups of vinegar to a hot water wash cycle to reduce microbes that make a front-load washer stink. (This is best for light odors—for truly overpowering smells, you may need a stronger cleaner.)
Just load the bag and toss it in the washer and then straight into the dryer. No more single socks.
If commercial fabric softeners leave your towels less than absorbent, use baking soda instead in the rinse cycle. Boost the whitening and cleaning power of both chlorine and oxygen bleach by adding one cup of baking soda to the wash water when using bleach. Clean away the gunk on the bottom of your iron with baking soda without leaving any scratches.
Another tip: If you hand-washed a single garment, put it in your kitchen salad spinner and give it several spins to help it dry more quickly. This will remove more moisture without excessive wringing and twisting which can damage fabrics and leave lots of wrinkles. Remove all of the other clothes and toss a handful of ice cubes into the dryer along with the wrinkled shirt. Tumble for at least 10 minutes on high heat. When the cycle is finished, immediately remove the shirt and hang it up. Smooth the collar, cuffs, and seams with your hands. You just made your own steam dryer. The steam created by the melting ice relaxes the fibers and helps wrinkles vanish. To remove the messages from lids, just use a whiteboard eraser or old cloth. If the shadows of the ink remain, wipe down the finish with a bit of rubbing alcohol and a soft cloth. For tough-to-remove ink, make a paste of baking soda and rubbing alcohol and scrub with a soft cloth. Or, use a melamine sponge to get rid of traces when you need to write new notes. Not to worry. Simply mix a solution of cool water and hair conditioner and submerge the shrunken sweater. Let it soak for at least 30 minutes. The hair conditioner will help relax the wool fibers so you can gently pull the sweater back to its original shape. For front-loading washers, you might try to find these items between the door gasket and inner drum. It may take a little finessing to grab back your items. Consult your owner’s manual to find out how to access these black holes in your washer. (Though for a front-loading washer, you could try lifting the gasket out of the way.) You might be surprised what you’ll find there.
Pry out the pour spout: You may think your bottle is empty, right? If you use a pair of plyers to grab and remove the plastic pour spout at the opening of your bottle. The design of most pour spouts prevents the last of the detergent from pouring out. You’ll be surprised to see how much detergent is left in your bottle. You can also try prying the spout out with a flathead screwdriver or butter knife.Cut a hole in the bottle: Access the last drops of detergent by using a utility knife to carefully cut a small triangular notched opening underneath the pour spout or somewhere closer to the bottom of the bottle.Save the drips: Does your economy-sized detergent bottle drip because it’s on its side for convenience? Catch the dripping liquid with a plastic cap or cup that sits right under the spout. Poke two holes across from each other in a plastic cap/cup. Create a little hanging basket out of the cap/cup by fishing wire through and securing it at each end. Hang the cap/cup right up under the spout.
So how do you fold your laundry quickly when it comes out of the dryer? You don’t if you want to properly fold clothing to get out the wrinkles. But you can get a lot better and quicker at it with practice and if you have the right tool in your laundry room or nearby: a flat, counter-height surface. Cut a piece down to the size of the hanger you’re using. Use a utility knife to slice the noodle open lengthwise to slip over the bottom bar of the hanger. But don’t put your item directly on top of the noodle or the color may bleed onto the fabric. Cover the noodle with a white towel or an old sheet to protect the item you’re putting on the hanger to dry.
Fill a gap with a slim rolling supply cart (they come as slim as 5 inches wide to fit into tiny spaces).Push a pool noodle or foam pipe insulation (at home improvement stores) between the space to stop items from dropping between the cracks.Put a laundry guard on top of your front-loading washer and dryer to prevent items from falling behind the appliances. Guards can be purchased and they’re made of plastic. Or fashion your own DIY version out of wood, acrylic, or another material that you can stand up at the back and sides of your appliances to act as a guard rail.For top-loading machines, close the gap from the back control panels of the appliances by placing a long shelf behind the panels. It also becomes a storage space for supplies, just make sure the lids don’t bang into the shelf when they are open.
If you have an old 100 percent wool sweater that’s shrunken, you can put it to good use with DIY wool dryer balls. Simply cut the sweater into strips and wrap them up into a ball for the dryer.
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Store lint in a clean milk jug with the top cut off or a plastic bag hanging in your laundry room away from heat sources. Keep an inexpensive canister of regular table salt in your laundry room so it’s on hand if you need it for a fresh stain. Sprinkle salt on a red wine spill to absorb the liquid. Once it does, brush it away and do the laundry. For blood or rust, make a thick paste out of salt and water and rub it into the stain to lift it. Wash salt out of your clothing or it can leave white stains. It’s not always better to do large loads of laundry. If you pack your washer and dryer with as much clothing and bedding as possible, you may break your appliances, but you will also do your items a major disservice. Your laundry won’t have enough room to freely tumble in the washing machine and they won’t come clean. Then, you will pack unclean clothes in a dryer, they won’t dry well and will come out damp and wrinkled. Stick to smaller batches for cleaner, drier, less wrinkled laundry.
You use cold water for all washes.You never clean your machine.You typically use too much detergent.You don’t use a premium detergent and it doesn’t remove soil well.You infrequently clean your bedding.
Soaking items in super hot water and a stripping solution of borax, washing soda, and heavy-duty enzyme-based laundry detergent will do the job.
