During my first ever week at college, I had to wash my new sheets for the first time in the Walnut Grove laundry room. A guy on the floor below me bragged about how he had never done laundry before. His mom always did it, why should he have to learn?
This came as a shock to me. How could he have gotten around the easy yet annoying task of doing laundry in high school? Instead of going with my innate instinct to judge him, I showed him how to turn on the laundry machine. Sadly, that is just the beginning of the Sisyphean task that is laundry. It’s easy to mess up your clothes when living on your own for the first time, but hopefully I can help newcomers to get acclimated to the laundry world.
Pods vs. Detergent, and is fabric softener necessary?
I have been a Tide pod enthusiast since freshman year. Gone are the days when I would have to measure how much liquid detergent I should include in a load of laundry. Instead, just throw in one pod per load and your clothes will come out squeaky clean. Putting too many detergent pods in one load can make the laundry pod’s plastic coating stick to your clean clothes. It’s a pain to peel off, so just stick to one pod for most loads.
Personally, I did not grow up in a fabric softener household. Fabric softener can cause some kinds of fabric to degrade in quality over time, like athletic wear or towels. Only use it for your old shirts and sheets to keep your clothes safe.
Does dry clean only really mean dry clean only?
As an avid thrifter, I have accrued a decent amount of so-called “dry clean only” fabrics in my wardrobe. Certain items must always be sent to the dry cleaners, like wool, silk or acetate. To get around spending extra money, always wear an extra layer between yourself and the dry clean only material. It’s a two for one deal: you get to pretend to be a Victorian lady, as they always placed many layers between their bodies and their expensive clothes, and your delicate clothes stay sweat-free.
Other fabrics like spandex and rayon, in my experience, can be washed in a machine but not dried in one. If they are dried in a drying machine, they will shrink and lose all their shape. Instead, make sure to hang dry those clothes after patting them dry with a towel. IKEA has an amazing and compact hanger to make sure those delicate items dry properly.
Speaking of the dryer, make sure to always use a dryer sheet or dryer balls. If you don’t, your clothes might stick together and have horrible static cling. I have used the same set of dryer balls for three years. They still work amazingly well, and they’re much more environmentally friendly than the single-use sheets.
What if I don’t want to do my laundry?
Trust me, I’ve been there. Some weeks I can barely get myself to get out and go to class let alone trek down four flights of stairs to get to the laundry room. Sadly, if you won’t do your laundry, no one else will do it for you.
To fight these waves of annoyance at my overflowing hamper, I got myself hooked on a weekly podcast specifically for laundry day. As I began to associate the podcast with doing laundry, I got excited to spend two and a half hours on the task just so I could listen to the show. I had become both Pavlov and his dog. In all seriousness, it does help to listen to music, a TV show or a podcast when doing laundry – just as long as you’re doing your laundry.
Not so bad, is it? Laundry does feel like a time suck on occasion, but it is a necessary task to make sure you feel good (and you don’t smell terribly during classes).
