laundry Archives - MomStart

New Year New Laundry Routine For Me Laundry Tips & Arm & Hammer

January 3, 2014 by Momstart 1 Comment

Well, the fad of using the washing machine and dryer has worn off for my husband. So I’m back to doing laundry and after a house full of people we have a ton of laundry to do. I mean I have a lot, blankets, sheets, and then the towels.

Spending one whole day doing laundry is not my cup of tea so I really need to get on top of it and do a load a day. There are almost always whites to do and the power of ARM & HAMMER^™ Baking Soda helps remove tough dirt and odor while delivering long lasting freshness that we like in our laundry.

Arm & Hammer actually has a great step by step program to a successful laundry routine. Here is a summary of their laundry tips.

You can sort your laundry which I do by color.

Sort by Color:
Whites, light colors, similar bright colors, and dark colors.
Fabric Type:
Delicate fabric, laces, lingerie, washable silk, etc. require gentle care and need to be washed separately. Lint-giving fabrics (chenille, terry, etc.) should not be washed with lint-attracting items, such as corduroy, permanent press, dark socks, etc.
Soil Content:
Heavily soiled work or play clothes should be washed separately from lightly soiled clothes.

Decide what water temperature you want to use. I almost always use cold.

Be sure to Pre-treat your laundry. (with kids you’re always doing this, this is about to be a chocolate stain)

Pre-treat:
- Liquid Detergent: Pour ARM & HAMMER™ Liquid Detergent directly onto tough stains and rub in.
- Powder Detergent: Apply a paste of detergent and water, rub on stain.
Pre-soak:
Use for large stained areas or deep set soils.
- Liquid Detergent: Apply ½ cap of liquid detergent to washer with warm water, soak garment overnight, drain machine, then launder as usual
- Powder Detergent: Apply 1 full scoop of powder detergent to washer with warm water, soak garment overnight, drain machine, then launder as usual
Pre-wash:
- For heavily soiled garments, run through pre-wash cycle before laundering.

You can also use additives, don’t forget to add them. I only use additives on extra smelly laundry like puke covered laundry, and over the holidays poor Miles had the flu. Here are tips for types of additives to use.

ARM & HAMMER™ Baking Soda Additive:

Liquid Laundry Detergent Booster: ARM & HAMMER™ Baking Soda helps your liquid laundry detergent work harder for you, because it helps maintain the optimal pH balance necessary for detergents to work well. Add 1/2 cup of Baking Soda to your wash with the usual amount of liquid detergent.
Deodorizing Your Wash: To remove the stubborn smells in your clothes while you wash, add 1/2 cup of ARM & HAMMER™ Baking Soda to the rinse cycle. It neutralizes the odors, leaving your clothes smelling fresh and clean.
Chlorine Bleach Booster: Use ARM & HAMMER™ Baking Soda to help your liquid chlorine bleach work harder. Add 1/2 cup of Baking Soda (1/4 cup for front-loading machines) with your usual amount of liquid bleach. Your whites will be whiter and your clothes will be cleaner and fresher.

ARM & HAMMER™ Super Washing Soda:

The all natural laundry detergent booster that adds extra cleaning and freshening power!

OxiClean™ Stain Remover Products:

OxiClean™ Stain Remover products release oxygen to target the stains, rather than the fabric, removing many tough stains. Available in several forms: Powder, Spray, and in-wash additive.

Bleach Additive:

Color-safe bleach is the bleach choice for colored garments. Chlorine bleach for whites. Test garment for colorfastness by dipping a hidden portion of garment in bleach product for a few minutes. Use with hottest water that fabric will allow.

And then for drying, I dry almost everything on low. If something had a stain you need to make sure the stain is gone before you dry it. Whites I do dry on high. Another tip:

Try ARM & HAMMER Total™ 2-in-1 Dryer Cloths: ARM & HAMMER Total™ 2-in-1 Dryer Cloths soften, control static cling and give you the long-lasting freshness you’d expect from ARM & HAMMER™ Laundry Products.

But the best tip I can give you as a parent doing laundry, make the kids do their part. If they are old enough to dress themselves they are old enough to put their own laundry away.

Giveaway: Clearon Bleach Tablets + $100 Visa Gift Card

September 30, 2013 by Beeb 152 Comments

Compensation was received for this post.

I don’t like using bleach. I like the results of using bleach, it’s just the process that is a pain. The fumes stink, I have to make sure I wear gloves so it doesn’t sting my hands, and I also have to change my clothes before I begin. No matter how careful you are, you WILL get a drop of bleach on your clothes and ruin them. Jai learned this the hard way recently when he used a cleaning spray containing bleach. It wasn’t even straight-up bleach, so he thought he didn’t have to worry about it, but he ended up ruining his shirt. This is why I have a dedicated “Bleach outfit” – a pair of ratty old pajamas that I wear whenever I’m using bleach, dying my hair, or painting. Grandma deals with this problem by dressing in head-to-to white, which seems like a way classier way to clean than dressing in rags like I do! 😉

So when I was introduced to Clearon Bleach Tablets, I was intrigued. This product provides bleach in a small tablet form, which completely dissolves when it makes contact with hot or cold water – meaning that you could toss these in the washing machine without having to change into ratty clothes first! One small bottle of tablets is equivalent to 2 gallons of bleach, so you can avoid carrying around and storing big, bulky bleach bottles. I thought this sounded like a solution I could get behind, so I agreed to give it a try.

For my first test, I did a load of laundry consisting of white towels, rags, and socks:

Socks - Before & After Clearon Bleach Tablets

If you’re wondering why these socks look so gross in the “Before” picture, these are what Jai has been wearing while working on construction projects and trudging around outside in our Oregon storms. For example, he had to stand in a huge downpour last weekend fixing a hole in our crawlspace door that had been created by racoons – so as you can imagine, this leaves some pretty gnarly stains on his socks! The bottle of Clearon advised using 3 tablets for a heavily stained load, which is exactly what I did. I thought this did a nice job of brightening these very stained old socks!

Depending on what kind of bleach dispenser you have, the Clearon Bleach Tablets can either go right into the dispenser or directly inside the drum of the washing machine. These won’t work in my washing machine’s bleach dispenser because there’s no way for them to make contact with the water, so I went with option #2 and filled the washing machine with hot water, adding the Clearon tablets and allowing them to sit for 2 minutes – the maximum amount of time needed for the tablets to dissolve 100%. The only downside to doing it this way is since I needed to add the clothes to the water after the bleach had dissolved, I still had to be careful not to splash the water on myself.

I also used these tablets to wash a load of Jai’s dingy white t-shirts, along with a few white dresses and tops of my own; Clearon helped brighten both loads of laundry and reduce the appearance of stains. After I finished these loads of laundry, I also ran an empty load through the washer with 2 tablets of Clearon, as recommend to deodorize the washer. I cleaned the washing machine pretty recently, but I like to be proactive with these things!

Of course, Clearon Bleach Tablets can be used for much more than just laundry – you can use them for anything you’d use standard liquid bleach for. You can dissolve Clearon in a bucket for mopping, and you can also drop a tablet directly into your toilet bowl before cleaning, which is what I did last night. I decided to spare you from a photo of my toilet – you can thank me later. 😉 Since the tablets are effervescent, they’re supposed to fizz upon contact with water, but I didn’t see it do this when I added it to the toilet bowl – perhaps because it dropped out of sight. I gave it a couple of minutes, then scrubbed down the bowl with a toilet brush. Like the washing machine, my toilet bowl had already been cleaned very recently, so I couldn’t really tell a difference in cleanliness since it was already scrubbed out – but I really don’t think there’s such a thing as “Too clean” when it comes to the commode!

One thing that really struck me about using the Clearon Tablets was that it didn’t emit the same kind of fumes I’m used to smelling when I use bleach. It’s meant to have a non-caustic formula with a lower PH than standard liquid bleach – It’s the same as the PH in shampoo – and when I was using it I noticed that there was hardly any trace of scent. That’s pretty impressive to me, since I’m usually gagging on fumes when I use bleach! The tablets also dissolve completely, without leaving residue behind.

I also love the super compact, easy-to-store packaging – Clearon Bleach Tablets are meant to be biodegradable, and they tout their small bottle as helping support their sustainability goals by using less resources to produce and transport, as well as adding less packaging to landfills. I also discovered that Clearon Bleach Tablets have a shelf life of 3 years, which means they’ll last in storage for a long time. Apparently, most liquid bleach has a shelf life of less than a year – did you know that? Because I sure didn’t!

Clearon Bleach Tablets now have a place on my laundry shelf, and I’m pleased to have a bleach product that is so easy to store and use!

Clearon Bleach Tablets are available online and at retailers such as select Walmart stores, Food Lion, Stop & Shop and Giant Food Stores – click here for a full list. For additional information, be sure to visit Clearon.com and “Like” them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter @ClearonProducts, and follow them on Pinterest!

Enter To Win:

One MomStart reader will win a $100 VISA gift card and 4 packs of Clearon Bleach Tablets – there are 8 bottles in each pack, so the winner will be well stocked up with these long-lasting tablets!

To Enter:

Entry is via the Rafflecopter form below – giveaway is open to residents of the continental United States (No APO/FPO or PO boxes), 18 years of age or older, and ends on October 15th at 11:00 PM PST. Read our giveaway rules by clicking here.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

How To Get Your Kids Clothes Really Clean: Wisk Deep Clean Power BLASTS

April 3, 2013 by Momstart Leave a Comment

By Rachel:

I’m a little bit of a laundry fanatic. In fact, I really LIKE to do laundry. I know, I know! I can hear all the other moms out there groaning under their mountains of dirty laundry that they hate to have to deal with. The normal moms who don’t do the laundry until their families actually run out of clothes and they NEED to do laundry. I do laundry pretty much daily. Partly, I do this because I don’t want it to build up – we are a family of 5 after all. But mainly, I do laundry because I enjoy it… (okay, and because then I feel like I’ve accomplished something and I’m not a total failure as a homemaker because the dishes are piled up, the floor hasn’t been mopped in a month, and I forgot to send my kid a snack at school…)

So, we’ve established two things so far. 1) I’m not perfect. 2) I like to do laundry.

When I was in college, I would take my homework down to the laundry room in the basement of my apartment when I had to wash a load so I could sit in there and watch all the clothes spinning around in the big front-loader washers with the windows in front. (This was before everyone had them in their homes – I don’t. It’s probably a good thing I have a top loader or I’d never get anything done while the washer was running!)

So now we’ve established that I’m a total dork…

It’s not just that I like to do the laundry and I do it. I’m actually fairly compulsive about the way I do it. I’m definitely a sorter. It drives me CRAZY that some people don’t sort their laundry. HELLO? Your white clothes will not be white anymore if you are washing them with jeans and black socks! I pass on all my kids’ clothes. My teenager’s clothes get saved for his younger brother. The girl and the little boy both have smaller kids lined up who get their clothes after them, so I really try to make sure that the clothes I’m handing down are in good shape. No stains, no weird smells, and plenty of wear left.

Wisk laundry detergent recently sent me a sample of their Deep Clean Power Blasts to try out. I’m always keen to try out a new detergent, and I’m always willing to throw in a load, so I tried them out right away. I had a nice big load of colored clothes to do, so I got that started. Then I set about to read up on the product.

Apparently there are 20 times more body oils and sweat in your laundry than visible stains.

WHAT?

That’s nasty!

I’m always all concerned about spraying stains with stain remover and scrubbing it in with a toothbrush, but I figured everything else just took care of itself in the washer.

Grossest items in my laundry? Probably the nasty, grassy, sweaty, stiff soccer socks I have to deal with every fall. Or maybe the cycling clothes my husband and teenager wear on their 50 mile training rides in the late spring and summer when they’re getting ready for the Seattle to Portland bike ride. I won’t say it’s my own workout clothes, or the towels I use to mop off my face at aerobics class… nope. My mom taught me that women don’t sweat – we glow.

At any rate, we threw the little pod of detergent into the washer on top of the clothes, like the instructions said. We ran the load. As far as I can tell, everything came out as clean as I wanted it to. I sniff tested some stuff, and everything smelled fresh and clean! Even my daughter’s cotton candy pink coat that she got all muddy at camp last weekend came out clean!

Apparently, the Wisk Deep Clean Power Blasts have this super-awesome, patented micro-cleaner formula that seeks out that nasty oil and sweat residue and eliminates it so it won’t build up on your clothes. I kind of think there might be a little ninja in those pods, kicking butt on your nasty socks and underwear! But that’s just me.

(But seriously, wouldn’t it be cool to have a ninja in your washing machine?)

About Rachel

Rachel is also a MOMS club member. She is thankful for the blessing of staying home to raise her three crazy, wonderful kids. In addition to scrapbooking, she likes knitting, gardening, reading, blogging and otherwise avoiding the housework she should be doing. You can read about her adventures and disasters at rachel’s ramblings.

Sample Received!

Whirlpool Duet Still Simplifies Our Lives

September 10, 2012 by Momstart 18 Comments

Remember over a year ago I received a brand new washing machine and dryer from Whirlpool and they are still going strong and saving me time. Currently they are saving me even more time because my husband likes them so much he’s doing the laundry. He even instituted a new laundry procedure that keeps the laundry off my couch and clean and put away where it belongs.

Want to know the rules?

Clothing must be put in the laundry room – the kids have to put their laundry in the laundry room. He does try to find their clothes but my daughter just learned yesterday that if she doesn’t put her clothes in the laundry room they won’t get clean. She wanted to wear one of her new dresses today to school and she couldn’t because she never put it in the laundry room. Saves me time because their rooms are cleaner and I don’t have to remind them.

Sorting Clothes depends on who does laundry – my husband and I both sort laundry differently. I do purple pink and red, blue green and gray, jeans and whites while everything else falls into one of those categories. My husband does bright colors. reds darks jeans whites towels and light colors. He does much more sorting than I do and guess what, the machine has settings for both of us.

From the Washer to the Dryer – once laundry begins you must make sure it goes from the washing machine to the dryer. The good thing is that this washing machine, The Whirlpool duet, has a keep fresh setting so if you can’t get to it right away the washer keeps it fresh so you don’t have to rewash, saving about an hour and a half of time.

From the Dryer to away – His best rule yet. If you start a load you finish it, fold it and put it away. He’s amazing at doing it and told me that if I decide to help I have to follow the rules and I’ve been following the rules. It’s been so wonderful, now I don’t have to spend a Saturday on the couch having a laundry folding fest with the whole family.

So the key message is organization simplifies my life. I wonder if someone could help me get organized in other areas of my life as well.

How do your appliances simplify your life?

“I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Whirlpool and received a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.”

Making Life Simpler My Resolve All-Stains Commercial

April 26, 2012 by Momstart 34 Comments

I am a brand ambassador and I am being compensated for my participation. I received free product samples in order to do this stain torture test. Any opinions expressed are entirely my own and are not influenced in any way.

I’m not sure if you know this about me but I’m really interested in doing more TV appearances and in doing a commercial for a major brand. When Resolve asked me to create my very own commercial as part of the Resolve Ambassador program I was super excited to give it a try. I recruited the help of my husband, because I was having trouble holding the camera, remembering what I was going to say while trying to smile. It was just too much to do alone. He was happy to help. Let me describe the scene…

Picture this:

You’re a mom
Laundry is everywhere
On the couch
On the floor
In the laundry baskets
In need of being folded
In need of being put away

IT NEVER ENDS

Here is my Resolve All-Stain commercial tell me what you think.

What I love about Resolve All-Stains is that it makes one thing in my life easier, getting stains out of these clothes that need to be washed. Fore more information go to the Resolve Facebook page and to enter the Stain Gambler contest.

So, was that just like your life? What do you like about my commercial and what do you think about Resolve All-Stains?

I’m a resolve brand ambassador.

More Laundry Habits Shout Color Catcher with Oxi

January 14, 2012 by Momstart 4 Comments

Thinking about my laundry habits reminds me of my little incident I had with the pull up in the washing machine the other day. OH Sigh! I forgot that when I first saw the one piece of gunk that I thought the Shout color catcher broke on me in the washing machine. Nope, it was the pull up. And boy was it a disaster. But once I cleaned up that mistake everything came out clean.

Shout wants to know if my laundry habits have changed at all since I’ve started using the Shout Color Catcher with Oxi in it. Well, no not really. I’ve always been a quick sort kind of person, I don’t sort as much as my husband does. He sorts practically every color into it’s own load and does much smaller loads than I do. I will say though that when using the Shout Color Catcher with Oxi I feel more confident about my loads not bleeding and coming out brightly without much fading. It’s been a while since a product has given me that satisfaction. There was a laundry detergent that I LOVED using because it worked like the Shout Color Catcher with Oxi does but they quit making it. So I’m glad for this new option. I do feel thought that for a balanced review I need to mention that I don’t like the way it smells when I pull it out of the washing machine. My laundry doesn’t smell just the color catcher does. I can’t exactly describe the smell I just don’t like it.

Currently Shout is offering downloadable Shout coupons on the Shout Facebook page for Shout Free and Color Catcher with Oxi.

“I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Shout and received a product sample to facilitate my review and a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.”

Do Not Wash Pull Ups in Your Whirlpool Duet Washing Machine

January 9, 2012 by Momstart 11 Comments

HA! I’m sure this is something that doesn’t even need to be said out loud right? Do Not Wash Pull Ups, diapers, pads of any kind in Your Whirlpool Duet Washing Machine or in any washing machine for that matter. At least my Whirlpool Duet Washing machine had the Clean Washer cycle where I could drop in an Affresh tablet and clean it before resuming the laundry.

My adorable son is no longer wearing diapers, in face he’s even out of pull ups. Until a week ago he was only wearing them at night, now he’s not wearing them at all. When he was wearing them he was pretty good about putting them in the trash can every morning when he changed into his underwear. Sometimes I would find them in the floor of his room and I’d have to remind him that they go in the trash can.

Now, I go to do laundry and I sorted all of the laundry. I sort by whites, denim, pinks orange and red, and then blues greens and yellows. I did laundry as I normally would. I loaded up the blue, set the machine to wash the clothes and walked away. I actually forgot that night to move them over to the dryer which is ok because the washing machine has a keep fresh setting. That morning I remember that I need to move the clothes over. I open the washing machine door and find some gooey gunk falling off of the washing machine door. Oh, I think to myself, I must have forgotten to empty a pocket. Then I look in the machine and I see it EVERYWHERE. It was disgusting. Gooey beaded up gunk all over the clothes. Gooey messy stuff all over the rim, the door the sides of the machine. YUCK!!!!

I started pulling out the clothes and inside I found the guilty culprit. The last Pull Up he wore ended up in my washing machine. I wanted to yell at him, but it wasn’t his fault mommy put it in the washing machine. He was the good boy that picked up his clothing and put it in the laundry room. He just forgot to separate his pull up from his pants. So I had to close the laundry room door and yell at myself as I shook out all the laundry and prepared it for an Affresh cycle. At least after the machine cleaned itself I was able to resume laundry without too much work.

SIGH!!!!

Using Shout Free and Shout Color Catcher with Oxi

December 27, 2011 by Momstart 79 Comments

Having kids means I have to treat over half the clothing before I wash it. Seems like having a boy makes it more than I ever thought it would be. Of course his clothes are covered from head to toe and I feel like I’m treating the entire shirt and not just a few spots. I have to treat my own clothing because they forget to wash their hands some I’m often used as a Kleenex or wash cloth for their face and hands. Sigh, Laundry is such a chore.

I just started using Shout Free and the Shout color Catcher. I like Shout Free because it’s fragrance free, dye free, safe on colorfast washables and works in all temperatures. Plus the trigger and spray works better than the other brand I was using, and what I mean by that is that it’s easier to squeeze and sprays a larger area if I choose. Because like I said sometimes I feel like I’m spraying the whole shirt so I like the sprayer. I’m easy to please.

I hate when clothing fades and bleeds onto the rest of the clothing. The Shout^® Color Catcher^® sheets absorb and trap loose dyes in the washing machine protecting clothes against color bleeds and helping preserve original colors. I was skeptical about it working but actually felt like the colors were brighter after my first use. Maybe it’s all in my head but I did a load of pink and red and used the Shout color catcher and it came out just a tad pink. I actually expected it to be bright. pink but it was only a very pale pink. And I threw in a very light colored shirt and it wasn’t pink either. So far I’m very pleased with the Shout Color Catcher.

Currently Shout is offering downloadable Shout coupons on the Shout Facebook page for Shout Free and Color Catcher with Oxi.

This giveaway has ended. Congratulations to the winner, Andrea D.

All rules can be found under giveaway rules.

I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Shout and received a product sample to facilitate my review and a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate