When I read Adrienne's Best Online Sources for Laundry Tips on Monday, I had been considering sharing this with you. Her post just made me decide to go for it. There's one more source I recently noticed for great laundry tips, and it's right under the lid of the washing machine:
From grass stains to dairy to blood, the tips printed on the lid of the washing machine help with treating a few common household stains. Despite years and years of facing this lid as I loaded and unloaded the washer, I actually never noticed the tips until a few weeks ago. Here is the full rundown of stain removal advice from my machine's lid:
- Anitperspirants and Deodorants: Apply a prewash soil and stain remover. Let stand 5 to 10 minutes. Wash in hottest water safe for fabric.
- Blood: Rinse immediately or soak in cold water with detergent 30 minutes. Rinse. Rub detergent into any remaining stains. Rinse thoroughly. Wash.
- Cream, Milk, Ice Cream: Sponge immediately or apply a prewash soil and stain remover. Rinse. Wash. Repeat if necessary. If stain remains, apply a few drops of liquid detergent. Rinse. If stain remains, soak. Wash.
- Grass: Use an enzyme presoak or rub enzyme detergent on the stain. Launder with detergent and bleach appropriate for the fabric.
- Ketchup and Tomato Products: Sponge immediately or apply a prewash soil and stain remover. Rinse. Wash. If stain remains, apply a liquid detergent to stain or soak in warm water with detergent. Rewash.
- Mud: Brush off the dry mud. Rinse under cold water. Pretreat with a paste of detergent and water. Launder using detergent and bleach safe for the fabric.
Does your washing machine lid come complete with helpful laundry tips? If so, are they the same as my lid's or do they differ? If you've never looked - take a moment and see. The path to better washing might be right under your nose!
Image: Regina Yunghans
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Comments (6)
My old laundry machine did. I belive it was Kenmore. My new wahsing machine is a LG with a glass doorl so unfortauntly no.
if your clothes are white and you have blood- hydrogen peroxide helps bigtime
i have a good question regarding laundry. For those of us who utilize laundrymats - how much soap should we be using? I'll use double load to 5 load washers and am so afraid of using too much or too little soap for each machine. The laundrymat has stickers that say you should only use half a cup of soap - but they have them on every single washer, regardless of load size.
Cold water for blood. ALWAYS. Otherwise you cook the blood right into the fabric. If the initial cold water wash/pretreatment didn't take it all away, then wash in the hottest water the item can handle.
Another trick for blood on clothing- saliva! It's a little gross, but when I worked at a bridal shop our seamstress taught us that if you dab some of your saliva on your own blood stains, it helps break down the blood and you can usually remove the rest with regular detergent. This works best with fresher stains. Very handy little trick... we even called some brides back to have them come spit on stains (not an easy sell, by the way!).
Wow - I wish my washing machine was as clever!