Many HOAs banned line drying due to aesthetics...but after lobbying the state (where I live) has passed laws that make it illegal for HOAs to ban line drying. They can however ban permanent clothes lines...so we get to pay extra to have a clothes line that we can take down when not in use. :p
@@bun04y My mom had hooks in the walls of the back of our house and our garage. Every Monday, the bundle of clothesline came out and she put up the lines and when the clothes were dry, she took them down again.
My grandmother grew up in the Netherlands, and she said everyone dried their clothes on a line. We asked her if they were ever embarrassed if the neighbors ever saw their underwear. She said "of course not, everyone has underwear. But if you didn't hang your clothes properly (meaning, straight, evenly spaced, etc) THAT was when you should be embarrassed."
So judging your neighbors based on some aspect of their line dried laundry is worldwide? Wether it's their choice of underwear, their bra size, or how neatly it's hung up. I recall one neighbor commenting on the color palette of my clothing on the line and comparing it to circus costumes. Another person commented on the number of broadcloth shirts (there were 9) but to her it was "so many". Can't win for losing.
A German here. Coming from generations of seamstresses and growing up in a rural area, most of our houses we have dedicated, well-aired rooms for doing laundry and hanging up our clothes when the weather is bad, called „Waschküche“. When it’s nice outside, hanging out our clothes on the line is pretty much the norm. I was also taught to wear an undershirt, and we air our outer layers outside when they are worn, but not stained, so they don’t need to get washed after every single wear. This really helps to maximize their life span. Hearing that some states actually banned people from hanging out their laundry is quite shocking.
There are a lot of laws that rich people get passed to try to keep out or drive out the poors. It's frustrating and classist. It's funny how as soon as upper middle class people started having backyard chickens, all those laws started falling too. Same concept.
Hanging clothes indoors when you have the heat on does not save energy. Your heat is still being used to change the phase of the water. So many Europeans think there is something virtuous about hanging clothes to dry indoors when at least half the year, it's not even thrifty.
The laundry room is typically located next to your heating system and you use the heat that ist radiating from there (via a small fan/open space within the walls) or it is in the same room (depending in your type.of heating system: wood/gas/oil/electricity). If your heating system isn't running (in Summer when Solarsystems are providing the hot water) you hanging it outside. This way you save a ton of resources.
Really interesting video, but there is one thing that I have to disagree upon and that is the sanitation part. While there might not be an explicit sanitizing step in our modern laundry routine, surfactants definitely are effective against bacteria etc. The whole point of a detergent is for part of it to be hydrophilic (easily soluble in water) and part of it hydrophobic (easily soluble in oils + fats) so that the hydrophobic part of it binds with non-water-soluble dirt and actually makes the compound of both water soluble after all, so that the dirt can be washed away. Cell membranes (of bacteria and viruses as well as your own cells) are made of lipids (fat), so they do get broken down by detergent. Heat and other chemicals are still helpful of course, but it is simply not true that your normal washing is not effective. Yes, some bacteria could survive, but mostly, you're fine, don't panic. Also note that the information posted on screen comes from a source that directly profits from you believing that normal detergent doesn't sufficiently clean your laundry by selling you a solution to the claimed problem.
Try using public laundry mats. Especially ones owned by apartment complexes, specifically the in ones they charge you to use. Pretty much guaranteed to get covid, an STD, and yeast infection It really doesn't matter what products you use.
Also let's try to remember that modern laundry practices have been absolutely life changing for people (especially women who were basically treated like domestic slaves throughout history). It's good to critique modern practices, but let's not forget that inventions like the dishwasher and washing machine have made it easier for mothers to have careers and hobbies outside of the home. I'm glad I don't have to put as much time into washing dishes or doing laundry so I can spend more time on fulfilling hobbies or relaxing after work. Also cool to have time for a career instead of being my husband's maid lol Anyway these types of videos are interesting, but people shouldn't take "reject technology embrace tradition" from it.
I fully agree that those regulations barring cloths lines should be elliminated. If a person has a backyard which is fenced and someone is offended by seeing the clothes on the line, then the offended person should be told not to look over the fence.
These types of restrictions often happen in developments that have "home-owners associations" (HOA) and they usually don't let you have a fence either. They also often restrict things like political signage, the exterior design and color of your house, and other things like that.
We live in an HOA that doesn't allow clothes lines, even in the backyard, but does require that our lot is fenced. I'm considering the use of collapsible drying racks, but haven't been able to find sturdy enough ones that the wind won't knock them over.
Thank you! Finally a RUclipsr from the US, who actually states in the video, that the experience she talks about is a North American experience. I get so disturbed by all the "we, modern people, do stuff like this" videos, because they are almost always US point of views and completely missing a disclaimer. I am from Eastern Europe, and there is so many historical costumer videos on RUclips, where they talk about "this is how people did this a long time ago and we will never know how accurate the descriptions are" - and I am sitting here and thinking that "this is how we STILL do things where I am from.
The US is quite detached from the rest of the world, informationally. The media rarely talks about outside world and most people don't know how different life is outside of the US.
@@strekozkaplays that is an extremely lame excuse lol. you don't need to rely on traditional media or travelling for being well informed, the internet is global, being informed about the rest of the world is insanely easy, other countries do it too
Unless you have existing health conditions you've been warned about you don't need to sanitize your clothes. Yes it sounds icky, but it has zero impact on your health. In the same way that you don't need antibacterial hand wash, the soap + water + movement does the job well enough.
Yes, couldn't agree more! Like don't wash your cloth diapers and other clothing together, because they will not require the same type of wash program. But clearly not soiled underwear will not make your other clothes unsanitary. Most of the "private part" bacteria will be washed out of the garments with all the other dirt, any remnants will be unnoticeable. Most of the bacteria found on your clothing are also most likely the same bacteria that's found on your skin, aka. non-pathogenic bacteria you surround yourself with on a daily basis. Clothes and washing machines can become stinky (not dangerous, just nasty) if not dried properly, like being damp/wet and without ventilation for a long time. This is because bacteria like water and maybe there's a bit of heat, so they like it even more, and they multiply and they get a party going and they have fun, but all that fun creates a distinctive oh-no-I-left-my-laundry-in-the-machine-for-a-week smell (you can thank my room mate from university for that one...). Moral of the story: just wash similar things together and effectively line dry them after, you don't have poopy T-shirts. - your friendly neighbourhood microbiologist
Just a tip for anyone alarmed by this video, the solution IS NOT to start adding more detergent to your clothes! Most people already use too much and thats part of the problem. A high efficiency washer using high efficiency detergent only needs a couple tablespoons of detergent to clean your clothes, more is gonna cause buildup and soap scum and clog up the washer. Use minimal detergent, add white vinegar to to combat hard water and soften clothes without buildup, and use dryer balls instead of dryer sheets. Dryer sheets can actually cause the problem Abby talks about where the dryer thinks clothes are dry when they arent; dryer sheet gunk is messing up the sensor.
@@DoodlesnDragons softener is bad for your clothes and skin, they are a toxin. I only use vinegar. Even in summer when I hang dry towels (for example) they are not as soft as with softener, but they are not scratchy ... and they soften more with use. If I need to use the dryer, I add wool dryer balls. (Trader Joe's has a nice set with a bag, and I saw them at Walmart too).
16:47 Her source for detergents not sanitizing clothes is literally an ad for laundry soap. Surfactants already kill bacteria by destroying their outer lipid bilayer (because it's made of the stuff soap removes) spilling out their insides.
Was just about to comment on this. I’ve definitely used detergents in lab to break down the lipid bilayer and that’s what hand soaps do as well. So if they kill bacteria on your hands, detergents should also kill the ones on your clothes.
I know this content is a year old, but THANK YOU. I've taken enough chemistry and biochemistry classes for my degree to know this was misinformation. Also, yes, UV light disinfects, but only to a certain degree in nature, otherwise the sunlight would just kill all bacteria everywhere. If only the US school system had more funding for basic science classes.....
Thanks for this comment. I came across a comment referencing this video today elsewhere on RUclips and the person was making out like Americans don't know cotton exists and that the only way to clean clothes is hot water and sunshine lol. They said cold water doesn't clean clothes!
People who live in apartments and have shared laundry facilities often have all those problems in addition to having to use dirty machines that will contain remnants of other people's laundry (never mind pet hair), so even if you attempt to use better products, your clothes will be exposed to other people's products. I have had a couple show downs with the management about my collapsible drying rack that I use on my balcony. Permanent drying lines are illegal (or were the last time I checked the legislation). The marketing of how to clean (and dry) our clothes is part of our pending ecological disaster.
Gotta love that stranger lint. Used to live in a high rise condo with central laundry facility. Best part of moving out was no Condo dues and private washer and dryer!
I was about to mention apartment dwellers. I would *love* to air dry my laundry, and while I have a balcony, it isn't private and I'm actually mildly worried about clothing theft. I also live above the 45th parallel, so not only is it not actually sunny/warm enough the vast majority of the year, when it is warm enough, it's also very smokey because wild fires and having my clothes smell like smoke would be... Not great. I'm not trying to be all "boo hoo capitalism makes me helpless to do anything waaah" because I actually do hang dry some of my clothing in our kitchen, so I know it's possible, but yanno. It's hard. It's like our society was built to destroy the environment and our bank accounts and it really sucks. I love the everclear idea, I think I'm going to use that. Great video. I have a lot to ponder now. Also how do I clean the top loading washing machine in my unit because I *know* it's disgusting.
@@meganstedman4728 You can buy washing machine cleaner. It's like a tablet or powder you run in an empty hot wash just to clean it. I hear people also just run a cleaning hot wash with baking soda and vinegar or bleach. You also must wipe around the agitator and drum for spilled derergent, scent beads, softener, etc that can build up and cause problems or smells. Probably some tutorials on RUclips somewhere.
I straight up hand washed a lot of my clothes and line dried in my bathroom for this exact reason when I lived in my college apartment! The washers were from the early 70’s and besides being *gross*, the agitator would beat the ever loving shit out of your clothes. And the dryers were set to incinerator mode no matter what level you put them on.
It's super interesting seeing this as someone from the Caribbean where our higene practices and clothing practices are totally different. I hand wash delicate thin things. Most Caribbean homes have clothes lines. Some folks will take care to hang bright fabrics in the shade. But most of all we have what we call house or inside clothes and outside clothes. Clothes you wear to work or to go out will never be worn at home. Home clothes are accumulated with lots of odds and ends of outside clothes that got stained or slightly damaged. And most Caribbean ppl shower twice a day, given the climate. It astounds me that Americans just wear jeans and nicer shirts at home. I've got old pj and stained shirts for home. Also beds? Never go on those with outside clothes on. These are deff practices our grand parents and their grandparents passed off to us.
I'm American however I do the same thing. I have "nice" clothes for going out. When/if it gets a stain, it then becomes something that I will ONLY wear around the house. These clothes become my cleaning, gardening, and yard work clothes.
……….huh? This comment don’t make a lick of sense. Why would you just run off with all these weird assumptions? For one it’s a big ass country with MANY a culture. How you even get all that from this video? What American media informs you? lol
I'm a lolita fashion enthusiast, I've been wearing these garments for 11 years now. This fashion really opened my eyes to modern laundry practices, because it's very common for members of this J-fashion community to be TERRIFIED of washing these dresses. They fully know and understand how hard machines can be on regular clothes, so naturally when it comes to $350-500 dresses they are so scared of cleaning them. Even as brands switched to better dyes that don't bleed and different materials, to this day people are still scared of washing their lolita. It's to a point where I have bought dresses secondhand and received them, knowing the garment was supposed to be white but it's all-over stained yellow, I wash it, and the water comes out opaque brown. And this happens all the time. I started getting into historical fashion in 2020 through channels like yours and Bernadette Banner, Karolina Zebrowska, etc. etc., and it has inspired me SO much to change how I wear my fashion. I was already taking extra steps to wash my lolita, finding ways to wash it that didn't damage it, and now I've started taking further steps to protect the clothes that I love and care for so much by wearing things like underdresses/chemises beneath them to protect them (and the blouses that I wear with them) from my skin. I've also started paying more attention to what materials the new clothes I buy are made of, including shoes and handbags. If it has fake leather (made from plastic) I refuse to buy it. So thank you so much for making this video, a lot of it was super validating and 100% yes people are afraid of line drying clothes in North America because it looks poor, and it's infuriating. So for any other lolitas maybe reading this, here's what I've figured out: -Get cotton nightgowns to wear under your dresses, or linen like Abby mentions but those might be harder to find. I've found ALL of mine in thrift stores, made sure they were labeled 100% cotton so they're comfortable against my skin, etc. You might have to hem it but hemming is the easiest thing in the world to do, and a great way to get into sewing, just look up videos on youtube for it. -If you're living in an apartment (which many of us are) stop washing your clothes in shared laundry facilities. Get a mini or portable washing machine, mine is a little top loader from Black & Decker. First: with Afterpay/Shop Pay/PayPal Pay in 4/etc you can get most of them for a payment plan of $20-40 a month. Second: It's WAY gentler on your clothes than a regular washing machine because they ONLY use cold water, just turn it inside out and remove anything with pins. Third: Hang your clothes to dry. You can get drying racks for like $20 at Walmart or hang them on the rods for your shower curtains, I do both. Make sure all the lace/ruffles/pintucks/etc are lying flat when it's wet and it'll dry nice, you might just need to steam it real quick afterwards. -You don't need to use fancy detergents, literally any basic detergent works fine. If you have some food/drink stains, throw a little bit of Oxiclean into the water with the wash and that'll help infinitely. -Mix vodka with lavender essential oil and white vinegar as a disinfectant spray, you can use this to spray the armpits of a dress if you got really sweaty while wearing it, inside your shoes, etc. -Stop dry cleaning your dresses I promise you I have yet to come across a single one I can't wash or handwash and it turns out just fine. And I have a LOT of dresses, including velveteen, corduroy, flocked, brocades, jacquard, etc. Some thoughts: -I've heard some people say that isopropyl alcohol is BETTER than vodka to use to spray your clothes with? It has a higher alcohol concentration, kills more bacteria, and isn't watered down like vodka is. I haven't tested this yet though and I don't know how dye-safe it is? -Should we add a dash of white vinegar to our laundry loads in addition to an eco-friendly/homemade detergent? I've seen vinegar mentioned in some historical laundering techniques and it is anti-bacterial, so could this be beneficial? EDIT: Apparently vinegar is also a great method for softening the water you use to clean with, but you'll need to do research to figure out how much to add to turn your hard water to soft water. DEFINITELY DOING THIS IN MY LAUNDRY FROM NOW ON! -What are some of the best/most eco-friendly methods for making detergent that are ALSO affordable and would be more effective than traditional "DIY detergent" recipes out there, has anyone found one they like or come up with something that seems effective? Really tired of the sham of most store-bought detergents and would like to get into making my own for cheaper instead! Thanks again for the great video Abby, modern laundry is AWFUL lol!
I buy white vinegar in gallon jugs. One of my local stores sells regular 5% "pickling" vinegar and 6% "cleaning" vinegar in gallon jugs. Make sure your white vinegar is made from grain and not some mystery ingredient. Vera Bradley handbags and other cotton products recommends using NO detergent and only white vinegar in the water to wash them. I have been using vinegar for jeans for years and as a final rinse to get detergent residue out of other laundry. Dryer sheets and most other "fabric softeners" put a very thin coating of wax on your garments, read the label. Most do not recommend use on towels and bed linens as the wax blocks their ability to absorb moisture. So don't use them on gym clothes or underclothes or anything that you sweat in, they won't pull the sweat off your body and allow sweat to cool you naturally. Remember that when using drinking alcohol the "proof" is double the percent of actual alcohol in the bottle. Rubbing alcohol comes in several strengths, look for 70% or higher. 91% isopropyl alcohol WILL mess up your manicure, it's a very strong and effective solvent.
Rubbing alcohol WILL SET YOUR WASHING MACHINE ON FIRE. Hand wash only!!! Edit: I'm glad you've found high enough quality fabrics that can last the washing machine but I've had clothes fall apart just from hand washing, which is what I do to most everything besides bedding and towels. Some things were just sewn to be fixed
@@darladay4766 When we're talking about rubbing alcohol we are not talking about putting it in the washing machine. You can use rubbing alcohol or vodka to separately spray and disinfect garments (insides of shoes, corsets, etc) to give them more wear-time in between washes.
@@chizukekihime oh, I do that smh. In the video she specifically referenced everclear or vodka in the washing machine so when you mentioned rubbing alcohol my brain must've just skipped. Sorry for my inability to read
Another tip is to not automatically put your clothes in the laundry bin after every single wear. Exercise some judgment considering what the garment is, what you did that day, how much you sweat, does it smell/look dirty. Not saying to keep wearing it until it smells but a lot of clothes can be worn 2-3 times (or even sometimes more depending) before washing and it's going to make a big difference on their durability and how many loads of laundry you do already. Like I rarely ever wash skirts since I wear shorts underneath them, until they get dirt or stains on them.
I do this all the time! I hang things up outside of the closet where air can circulate around it overnight, then put it back in the closet to wear again.
Yes! I have a coat hanger thing in my closet of about 10 hooks and I put my clothes that I've only worn once on it and wear them again before tossing them in the laundry.
I knew nothing about linen before I watched this so I started trying to learn. I keep hearing that linen shouldn't be washed in hot water! How is it that people could boil their linen undergarments? Was there something different about the fabric?
Not me (a European living in an area of Florida that has banned line drying clothes) hanging my family’s wet laundry in our guest room as I watch this video 😂 I will say, with attempting proper care of clothing and mending when broken instead of replacing, I still own and wear a dress from 15 years ago from a H&M sale. Cheap clothing doesn’t have to be treated like it’s cheap especially when that’s all someone can afford to buy at the time!
I recently sewed 3 buttons back on 3 different clothing items that came off at the laundromat. And then tried to patch a shirt that had a hole in it that I got from a thrift shop. I didn't want to throw the shirt away it was too cute. I hope I did a good job lol. Guess I'll find out😋
H&M clothes were so much better quality 15 years ago, it's insane. I still have many pieces from then, and have given up on them recently because all fabric became so thin it's see-through.
I only buy cotton clothes, they are amazing. I will say that nowadays its more "quantity over quality". F.e.: jeans. You used to have a pair of jeans for years (my mom said that 15 years for a pair of jeans was normal)... Now I have them for two years and they are worn out and broken (I do reuse the fabric).
We use distilled white vinegar in the "fabric softener" portion of the washing machine to soften the rinse water and help sanitize things. It's also good for keeping colors and whites bright and it's much cheaper than actual fabric softener. It also won't clog up your washing machine.
Yep and the vinegar will also help break down the oils and skin cells and will keep the washer from growing mildew and mold Edit you also got to be careful to not put to much vinegar as stright vinegar will brake down the rubber
Elasthane can take up a decent amount of vinegar - but it mustn't be used for clothes that have some kind of membrane, like gore-tex. Those are, however , usually to be washed separately anyway, so it isn't much of an issue.
Growing up in Russia, we always had what we called "home clothes" and "outside clothes". Home clothes were usually older comfy, misshapen, patched or stained clothes that are wearable, but that you wouldn't mind getting a beet stain on that you couldn't remove. Outside clothes were things you'd wear to school/work etc. You'd change as soon as you get home and usually wear the same home clothes the whole week until the next laundry. You'd also have summer house/playing on the street/gardening clothes, that were basically your old "outside clothes" that did not fit for home or school/work. In Sweden on the other hand - there is no such thing. Sure, most people usually use their older jeans for gardening or wear sweatpants at home, but the last one is more out of comfort (and bought especially for that) rather than preserving ones clothes. It really does make a big difference in how long ones clothes last
This is interesting, that this concept is being cited from such geographically diverse countries. I'm thinking this through. I dress up every work day because I'm on video calls, and I like it. But I'm going to think about whether I can use this technique.
I remember my friends, who were mostly taken care of by their grandmother, had to change their school clothes to home clothes as soon as they got home. But it has indeed been mostly forgotten in Nordic countries. It *used to* be a habit here as well, though.
@@LS-sg8rb I have taken this habit into use a couple of years ago. My home clothes are mostly comfy, though some of them are nice enough to be shown in a video call when working from home. I have very few "outdoor clothes" left these days (as they did back in time), and it really saves money.
One aspect that wasn’t mentioned in the video was time. Our modern era views time spent doing tasks so much differently than historic eras. I have three kids and currently pregnant with #4 and I can’t imagine the time it would take just to get through the laundry process of soaking, scrubbing, rinsing, boiling, ringing out, hanging up to dry and ironing! Heck I can’t keep up with folding and putting it all away. And don’t get me started on cloth diapering! There’s a reason laundress/ washer woman was a real occupation for women in historic eras so people who didn’t have time or facilities to do their washing could hire it out. But for most low to medium income households, putting the time in to spend many hours on just washing the clothes was so normal they didn’t think any differently. Now we can’t even fathom putting that much time into laundry yet we will gladly binge watch entire tv series on our smart tvs and not bat an eye.
Cloth diapering isn't that bad if you have an European style washer that actually heats the water, I did it on my fist kids. I couldn't do it in US though with my third kid. First we were traveling, second I'd have no clue how to get those things clean with only lukewarm water.
@@moniaqua_on_youtube don't US wasmachines heat the water?? I only know European machines, I didn't know front loading machines were not a thing in the US. I used cloth diapers for a little bit, I hated them, my kid would pee once and it would be drenched, including the pants he was wearing. Having to change clothes so often, I gave up on cotton diapers.
@@EmeraldVideosNL As much as I know, no, they are connected to the warm water tube of the house and that's it. If it hasn't changed, it's been a while since I lived there. Cloth diapers worked mostly well for me and my kids, some accidents included but normally all stayed dry outside :). Sometimes I bought disposable ones but every single time I used them the kids got sore with those and I was happy that the third one could stand the disposable ones.
Bernadette Banner did a video on historical laundry practices a while ago that was really good. I have a hard time imagining doing laundry without being able to just put on a load and walk away from it.
@@anjolitukuafu Was it that one where she took a nice, deep breath of some ammonia vapors and cooked soap in seemingly a pot that might else be used for cooking meals and I thought for myself that some lessons in basic (or even more), dress-related chemistry for dresshistorians wouldn't harm at all? I remember that one, it showed really well all the work related to washing in the past and how well it actually worked out.
This is so fascinating particularly as a person living in the Philippines (and is probably similar in a lot of the "Global South"). So much of our traditional laundry practices that are way more sustainable are being displaced by aggressive marketing from the big multinationals that sell detergents and fabric softeners. I've often been looked at askance when I tell people I refuse to use fabric softeners, and don't use chlorine bleach (vinegar, washing soda and oxy bleach instead). Also, as someone who also loves line drying...I can't imagine living in a country where I can't line dry at all 😬
As a Honduran, I’ve always thought that our way of hand washing and line drying clothes was way better. It’s a lot more eco friendly. But because in my country the sun beams all day, clothes hey dried. Don’t know if the same can be said about ever changing seasons in places like NY
@@kateburcroff5209 Exactly. It's only some Home Owners Associations that don't allow laundry lines. As you know the US is a huge, vast country and there are no laws against line drying. Just some HOAs have weird ideas about what "looks nice." These HOAs are often the same ones where the tell you what color you can paint your house, trim, mailbox, write people up for leaving their garage doors open etc. A few even dis-allow vegetable gardens. (Many HOAs are just there to maintain the pond or lake the houses are on and do not try to control much of anything. They are all different.) My husband and I refused to make an offer on a house just a few days ago, in part because the HOA didn't allow vegetable gardens. (The house was a bit cramped and had little to no storage, too.)
As someone living in Germany, I am pretty confused about much of this. Yes, in some parts here you are not allowed to hang laundry in certain places (like outside the window, or in my case inside the flat - because dampness) but: this means the owner has to supply you with a space to hang laundry. Often in the cellar, where there is also space for everyone to put there own laundry machine (and if you have one dryer). People sometimes have dryers, mostly to keep towels fluffier or to dry other sturdy things. Obviously, you need to know how hard the water is, so you can adjust the detergent and if necessary add a water softener? (same goes for dishwashers!). How much people separate their clothes differs, but I wouldn't wash underwear with other clothes. I usually wash them at higher temperatures with the towels (with detergent meant for higher temperatures/white cottons). My mother does separate delicate/not delicate, dark/white and (at least while there were 5 people living in her household) would usually separate further by color/ garment type (no jeans in with the blouses/shirts). I also have rules what things I won't wash together, but sometimes get a bit creative if I need to wash but don't have enough of one kind to fill a load.
For a lot of people in the US, laundry is treated as a dump and forget it kind of process- toss everything in the washer and then in the dryer when it's done. The only reason I can remember being told to separate out items was due to possible color bleeding from fabrics, nothing to do with sanitary issues.
I live in a German suburb that was mainly build in the 60s and there are washing lines everywhere there might not be a fence or a stone path in the gardens but there will be poles for adding a laundry line 😅
@@yarnellka I think here it greatly depends on your family (as those are usually the ones teaching you). I think my mother mostly sorted by color (because bleeding) and type (because you use a different setting and detergent), but I also think most people would not wash their underwear with, say, dishtowels? I have a cat and got into the habit of never even washing finer clothes directly after the blankets she likes to sit on (as well as catbeds, rugs, cleaning towels) but do another load at a higher temperature (usually sheets) in between. I do lover her, but I do not need more cat hair (or other, err stuff) on my clothes.
I totally agree. I‘m from Germany too and find the thought of washing my underwear with my Shirts very strange. They go in with the towels and socks and are washed hot. Bedsheets are washed seperately and hot, too. Same for cloth diapers, but I know the use of those isn‘t that common. The other clothes are devided in white and colourful/black and delicate fabrics are washed seperately, too. We use oxygen bleach and dose it individually. And use no softener at all.
In college, my roommate and I installed a retractable laundry line between our lofted beds in front of our window. It was incredible! We line dried most of our laundry and our room always smelled so clean and fresh because of it. Our friends laughed at us for it, but it's one of the best decisions we made. And our jeans outlasted everyone else's because we weren't frying them in the dryer ;)
In Australia most families don’t even have dryers and if they do it’s usually only for emergencies. Majority of families hang their clothes on a line in the backyard.
@@Author.Noelle.Alexandria There's next to no way that France has no dryers, I'd say, since I know them from Switzerland (many people either have access to one or own one) and have seen them used in Belgium. But it's possible that they are much less frequently used in France than I would guess, since such small differences between neighbouring countries exist. One example would be that German people apparently store their cleaning detergents etc. in a way that makes it hard for children to get to them, while in Switzerland, we kind of don't.
You can get around a lot of these issues by wearing your clothes more times before you wash them. Getting an extra day or two out of your tshirt means you reduce the impact of the problems of laundry by 2-3x just because you have washed the clothes less
Thats nice unless you're a sweaty man that works fast food and when not working fast food goes into a woodshop full of sawdust for fun lol. I do however were pants more then once
I've never understood the way many people do laundry, aka wash everything after a single wear. If it's not stinky or stained, I simply don't wash it. My jeans basically get about a yearly wash and as a result, I have several pairs that are more than a decade old. Also, just hanging a sweater etc outside for a couple hours is plenty to refresh it if you didn't sweat in it.
I'm 60, Australian, and was taught by my Mum to do laundry carefully and respectfully. I still hand wash precious garments, have washed wedding dresses, silk shirts...etc with no ill affects. I love my modern washing machine but feel that an understanding of clothing laundering has been lost. Longevity, effectiveness and environmental factors definitely underpin my practices and its a shame many seem to have no idea of how much they could save by some time spent not only washing garments correctly, but also hanging correctly and ironing correctly. A really good challenge Abby!
I remember at about 12 or 13yo, having to take the whole family's laundry to the laundrette every Saturday to wash dry & fold (once we had a washing machine, I had to do the ironing on a Sunday after it had line dried). Since I was stuck at the laundrette mostly alone, I read all the old New Idea mags with Martha Gardener, Deirdre Prusak etc & all the old advice columns about how to care for, fix, clean, undo, repair, remove stains - all the stuff that came in so handy when I left home. Last year I found a 1980s edition of Martha Gardener's handbook at The Salvos - it makes me so happy! I too have hand washed many items of silk clothing from shirts to lingerie with zero ill effects. Women have been wearing silk underwear for generations & I'm certain that very few of them, if any, would be willing to take their knickers to a dry cleaner.
@@joannecarroll5504 Hearing you and @Kaytie J, my grandmother trained my mum, who trained me. Those old fashioned Aussie laundry practices. I also use to hand wash silk shirts. Never paid for dry cleaning just a delicate hand wash, roll the excess water in a towel (never wring) and lay flat to dry. Used to boil my daughters white school shirts (cotton) to the get them clean. I always have a big pot for just that purpose. Never use fabric softener - it smells so artificial. Use a fraction of what the recommended dose is for a load. Use a bar of pure soap as a stain cleaner. Rub into garment and let it soak for 12 hours. Throw in wash - all clean. The smell of clean clothes coming off the line after baking all day in a Queensland sun - heavenly. However, we now live in Tassie and run a BNB - have to use that dryer in winter as nothing gets dry.
I'm 26 and live in South America, and yet the practice of washing delicate clothing by hand is just...like, so obvious to me. Grandma and mom taught me that and I do it for like, new delicate clothes (new clothes in general, its a good way to know if they'll bleed and stain everything), new underwear and flowy, sheer clothing in general. Underwear mostly in the summer when it dries super fast, tho. I got my fill of hand-washing everything last year when my machine broke (the only clothes i could pay to have dry cleaned, since there are no laundromats here, were towels and bedsheets, because my poor arms lol)
I’m 30 and trying to learn all this kind of thing, no one ever taught me these things, honestly I’m so embarrassed that I don’t know, but I really do love learning about how we used to do thing just goes to show how the attitude to our ancestors is so wrong Iv always thought this when I heard people talk about them as in them being dumb an that Iv always thought nar so much more to it that can’t be true! Just such a different way of life
Thats awsome. I do a similar thing with washing dishes. The fine china get hand washed and placed on a dish rack to dry wile the tougher dishes go into the dish washer. I do try to wash by hand to save electricity and water as well.
When I lived in the Yucatan, many people had a drying room. It was basically a shed without a roof with laundry lines in the backyard. The sun is brutal there and it ruined anything with elastic very quickly ( I ended up replacing the elastic in all my husband's boxers). My solution was to hang my clothes in my covered porch on hangers. They take less space on the line and it's one step less. Also aprons do wonders for protecting your clothing. I like the kind with a bib front and pockets. Speaking of protecting clothing, our ancestors even wore washable sleeve protectors. Collars and cuffs were often removable and could be washed or replaced.
My dad sometimes tells me about washing routine in our family when he was a small boy in 50s. It's important to mention that it was a period right after WW2 in an area severely bombed so there were no working water pipes, the only source of water were wells, rivers and springs. The best water for washing was in a well in about a kilometer distance and they didn't have a horse, so all family members gathered together, took buckets and went to that well to get water. They had to make several voyages back and forth to have enough waterfor washing and rinsing. Dad says that water in the well was very soft, mild and helped to save detergents, that were difficult to buy in post-war period and that the fabric after washing was very soft and pleasant without any fabric conditioners. It was a weekly routine for the whole family. Also he said that wool and silk were washed with white clay in sea water and then rinsed in fresh water. A perfect place for this was in about kilometer and a half from their home - it was a shore of the sea with little pits filled with white clay and a small spring nearby. Also he said that his granny's coat was turned about 8 times before it was sent to a landfill. Oh, and they often used mustard seed powder for washing.
It's just so dystopian I tried with an American and she just kept saying oh it's better because it looks nice and nobody trashes you garden. I was like why would people trash your garden?!?!? That's Not Normal behaviour!
@@sarahnaz1544 home owner associations in the US that ban washing lines and say you can't put fences that are the wrong colour or park on the driveway.
@@lucie4185 & your grass can only be so high, you can't plant certain flowers, trees, shrubs. You can only paint your house certain colours, even what kind of holiday decorations you can put up ect. It's basically a few or just sometimes one committee people/person acting like a power mad Nªzi.
If this video doesn't go viral I'm going to be extremely disappointed in YT watchers. BTW, Italian here: we usually air-dry our clothes. In the last few years you can find dryers in the shops, but I have no idea how much they sell. To me, it sounds so wasteful (and plain stupid) to forcibly dry something that's going to dry anyway if you give it a few hours. It's not like we have just one shirt/skirts etc. I can see that a dryer can be necessary if you live in a ridiculously humid enviroment, but if you are not, they are useless, imo. Oh, and when my father was a kid (about 60 years ago), my granmother did the laundry by going to 'the' brook with the other women of the village, and boil the clothes and linens in water and ash, rinsing them in the brook, and hanging them to dry on nearby bushes and small trees. It was a day long job, not only for the amount of stuff to clean, but also because they had to climb down the rocky peak the village is perched on to reach the stream. Heavy, heavy work. (sorry for the humongous comment)
Also an italian! Here, near the sea, I have an older aunt that goes with few friends of hers to a spring of icy water (it's too close to the sea, can' drink it!). they get there super early and spend the first hours of the day (like once a week in the summer ,'cause work, and more often even when the weather is cold!) beating and washing linens and clothes with coal and some more stuff. Always amazed, couldn't last 10 seconds in that gelid water!! they say they feel good and fresh, and the final outcome is really nice, but it's a really heavy job. they do it mostly for the tradition and the small get together, though i'm not sure if all of them actually have even "adjusted" to having a washing machine! P.S: not a sign of a drying machine here!
costs of a machine dryer are about the same as a machine washer. they are sold in sets in the U.S. with a tiny markdown for buying both at the same time. A lot of people always buy a set so the appearance matches. I've bought in a set as my old machines were both on their last legs. It's another privilege - convenience to not have to go to a laundromat (communal washing) and pay per load.
I live in northern Europe and clothes dryer was a god send. We do have long and rainy autumn, then very cold but humid winter and then again - a rainy spring. Before that, washing my jeans in colder months meant that I will be able to wear the same jeans only after a week or so. Dresses, skirts that were of the heavier material also were drying for almost a week. And washing your clothes in such a humid climate is not just washing our your sweat (in winter most of use use undergarments for warmth either way). Clothes get dirty and salty and wet when you walk outside in the street, as it's raining, snowing, ice is being salted, etc. I know most of the people are still line drying their clothes where I live, but it takes a lot of time, you cannot dry your clothes outside, cause it's raining constantly, so you are drying your clothes in the room, making it a game "lets hide our laundry fast when people come over". It raises humidity in rooms up to a point where a risk appears for a mold to start growing. Basically - never going back to line drying in winter months. No thank you. In summer - yes, that is a perfect option.
In New England, this year alone, we've had almost 7 months of either rainy, cold and drizzly, or hot and 75% or higher humidity weather. While I have a dehumidifier in my basement, the humidity spikes whenever I do laundry, and while there are some things which will rack dry overnight, anything heavy (or denim) gets mildewy and musty scented before it dries. When the winters drop below 0F it usually goes down to about 45F in my basement, which also isn't conducive to air drying (also in winter, before roads are plowed or if the city shuts down for a blizzard, it can be very difficult to get into town to a laundry or any other place). While I appreciate more temperate climes may allow for inside or outside line drying, access to a dryer here has far more benefit than not.
@@chiaratessitore5628 Ma ciao!!! regarding driers, I live near Milan, and is humid almost all year round. Basically, I don't really understand how air-drying is so impossible elsewhere, if you don't live in an actually exteme climate… in summer you do it outside, in winter you do it inside, where the heater is going. Boh, who knows! Baci! =D
As a plus-size human, I’m all about keeping my clothes nice! It’s tough finding well-made, well-fitting clothes that fit my budget. So thrilled to find more tips on extending wardrobe life.
Thanks for another interesting video! I had some thoughts from my perspective as a nurse: First with regard to sanitizing: In a situation where folks are not very ill, cleaning is enough. The friction, rinsing and detergent removal of oil and dirt carries off most bacteria and viruses. This is generally enough to keep most people from getting ill. If someone in the house is ill with something like COVID, MRSA or C. diff, you might want to step it up. In that case, I would use bleach and the hottest water setting, and dry in the sun. If someone is concerned about, say, E. Coli or stool on underwear in an otherwise healthy household, I would consider using the hottest water setting, and either oxyclean (basically washing soda and baking soda mixed), and/ or a pre rinse with vinegar. These are natural, inexpensive and kill many germs. Especially when combined with the dirt removal/friction/rinsing. Then, like you said in your video, hang them in sunlight. All this, if your clothing label says the fabric can stand up to it. Definitely wear your most wash tolerant clothes when ill. I like your idea about linen underwear. It is difficult to find, though!
I use Lysol’s laundry sanitizer for my clothes. I also work at a heavy-traffic airport. Is it worth the extra cost if I can just mix what you listed above into my laundry instead?
Yes I agree! I have cystic fibrosis and am very careful with my clothes. I o my wear cottons to the hospital that I can truly deep clean without worry (oxyclean and a hot machine wash with vinegar and scent free soap). The rest of my clothes I’m more delicate with because I love fashion and try to preserve them ahaha 😅
@@dandelion_fritters It might be. Vinegar is cheap where I live. Oxyclean is a mix of washing soda (aka borax) and baking soda. You can get giant boxes of those for cheap at Costco or Sams Club. Sometimes at normal grocery stores. Bleach is fairly inexpensive if ypu are ill. All are kind of hard on clothes, though.
Thank you for this! I was wondering how necessary it really is to sanatize our clothes. I never bother, though I do line dry things in sunlight because that's what I have available to me.
FUN (DANGEROUS) FACTS: fabric softeners actually adds a film onto your clothes and make your clothing more flammable and doesn't actually 'soften' your clothes. This can be dangerous when you toss them into the dryer but also in your day to day wear. I'm a fire performer and never used fabric softeners due to the hazard and the gross feeling it causes. Also some companies sell "fire resistant" baby onesies: 1) this means you should never dry the outfits on high heat, it'll cause it to be very rough on the skin 2) it does not last for ever. its effectiveness is only a year or so. Be aware that it is perfectly fine buying second hand but don't just blindly trust the label. 3) "fire resistant" baby clothes are a bit misleading because its only fire RESISTANT not a retardant, it has a higher flash point (burning temp) and if it reaches beyond that point it will still burn and turn to ash and not melt onto the skin. (synthetics will melt into a pile of molten goo whereas natural fabrics will still burn but turn into a ash and not melt your flesh) Do not go and buy fabric retardant spray for use on fabric that'll be worn on the skin, it will cause severe irritation/rashes and such because the chemicals are not supposed to be used that way, and it does not make up for the fact a fabric is synthetic and will melt.
This might be a silly question but why would one need their infants' clothes to be flame retardant? Lol. Should not the baby's skin, hair, etc. be more concerning? I am not a child rearer so this is just my assumption. 😂
And the way to avoid fire retardant clothing for children is to put them in snug fitting clothing. The basis for the law is that children were getting burnt due to being near open flame sources, not house fires, think candles fireplaces stoves, so they over corrected by mandating sleepwear to be fire resistant. Relatively recently it's been reevaluated and clothing for sleepwear for children has to be snug fitting to avoid needing the coating. It's why fabrics will say not for children sleepwear because they don't want to be on the hook for you making a baggy or unfitted pajama set or nightgown for a kid and then have them catch on fire. Because those clothes If purchase should have had the protectant coating. Tldr: avoid fire retardant sprays by baking children sleepwear very fitted.
I've literally done the trick of dyeing a dress darker to hide a stain! Australian here and my mum gifted me a copy of a book called Spotless and it's essentially a home manual full of every possible stain/fabric combo. I've never experienced those little holes you mentioned but we haven't had agitators for years and don't have hard water. Praise be the Australian tradition of the hills hoist!
As someone who has always indoor line-dried their clothes: watch out for mould and mildew spreading around the house. Line drying promotes a shit tonne of humidity.
In my experience mould means bad house construction. Water leeking in somewhere and bad airflow troughout the house. If humudity only was the problem showering would be done outside the house.
I had a problem with indoor dried clothes causing black condensation mould to grow on my colder walls. I have now invested in a dehumidifier which is a lot cheaper to run than a dryer and keeps my home fresh and dry too.
@@ItBeThatWaySometimes It also matters where that exhaust fan expels the air. In far too many homes, it just expels it into the attic rather than outside, so you will still have mold and mildew issues.
That's an important topic. Thank you for the reminder to use my "Wäschespinne" (translates literally as "laundry spider" :) and is basically a rotary cloths dryer) more often. Thank goddess this is allowed in our region. Some thoughts I have: - Bleach can also be made with oxygen. Infact I do not have chlorine bleach in my house. - Bacteria etc. mostly are destroyed at temperatures above about 40° to 45° C (104 - 113 Fahrenheit). If you want to get sure, 60° C (160 F) is a good option, some nasty stuff needs higher temperatures. 90°C (194 F) should help on really most things even without detergent or bleach. - I never ever wash underwear incidentally with outer garments. It comes, together with the other laundry I want to bleach (towels, washcloths etc.), into the 60°C-cycle. Of course, you need underwear that can stand those temperatures... - Clothes dryed on a rack outside really smell wonderful in spring when all the flowers bloom. In winter, when some houses in the neighborhood are heated with coal briquetts they don't smell that fine 🥴 - Rubbing the clothes like they did in the past isn't good for fabrics either. - Hard water can be softened with citric acid. Soda does a good job on it, too. - Not all was good in the past :) I think we are privileged today. We can learn from the past and take the best out of both worlds. I wouldn't want to miss my washer (I don't miss the US-style washers that I know though :) ) but we still can think about our washing routines. We do have well functioning devices and chemicals at hand, the challenge is to choose the right ones to be appropriate for the tasks they are used.
Air drying clothes and using distilled white vinegar instead of fabric softener has helped a ton. I also have used baking soda and hydrogen peroxide to get rid of ancient armpit stains. I've also been paying attention to washing instructions in the tags of all my clothes. It's amazing how many shirts say "hand wash only" and "dry clean only." I also don't put any of my blouses in the dryer, unless I'm in a huge rush.
I was very poor as an out of town student in the 70's and hand washed everything as I could not afford the laundromat down the road. I soon learned how to treat my clothing better, make better second hand choices in the charity shops and tackle anything from ink to blood stains in my shared bathroom bathtub. I still enjoy hand washing my woolens and underclothing. Great topic, Abby...this could easily be a multi- part topic if you include proper ironing and starching. :)
@@kagitsune One simple tip is to give each garment taken from the washing machine a good shake after cleaning and prior to placing it in the dryer or hanging it on the clothing line. This relaxes the fibers and helps to prevent set in wrinkles. ;)
When I lived in Eastern Europe I went to an international school. My European classmates would not only wear a piece of clothing many times before laundering it, they would line dry everything.They would spot clean and air everything out between wearings.The school did have dryers, but it seemed only us American students ever used them. Their reasoning was: "If my shirt isn't visibly soiled or sweaty, why should I wash it right away?" This was in the late 1990's, so I have no idea if practices have changed. My fellow Americans would think me disgusting, but I do this now: line dry as much as possible, spot clean, and air things out between wearings. I have folding drying racks, just like we had at the school. They take up little space when not in use and hold a lot of clothing.
Also in the US, and I started airing clothes out between washes years ago because I couldn't afford to do laundry very often - darn apartment building machines that charge money!
As a child in the 60s, my mom would yell at me for throwing clothes in the hamper that I'd only worn once! I've always worn my clothes at least twice before they get washed and I thought it was just my own 'dirty little secret'; now I find out that, once again, I'm not alone!
I don't get it, do people in the US only wear things once before washing? That's madness! If it's not dirty and not smelly then it's perfectly fine to wear a second/third/fourth time. I can't imagine washing anything after one wear except for knickers (UK here) unless they have actually got dirty, sweaty, and/or smelly. Can someone explain this attitude of wear only once then wash?
@@katew7770 It depends on how you grew up and the climate. The way I grew up is that anything worn against the skin like a t-shirt or undergarment is washed every day during the late spring/summer months. Otherwise, I wash my clothes when I run out of clean underwear. During the spring/summer/autumn months I line dry. In the winter, I use my dryer.
Can attest to the same still being done, at least here in Italy. Clothes go in the washing for only one of three reasons: they’re visibly stained, they don’t pass the smell test or I just can’t remember anymore how many times I’ve worn them. Only exceptions are formals, since I’m not gonna keep a dress out that I might wear again maybe in 6 months.
I'm scrutinizing the way that I was taught to do laundry and wear clothes now. Abby, would you consider making a follow-up video on creating "modern" linen undergarments that could be worn under pants and t-shirts and such?
For the short time I lived in the US, I was stunned by the lack of laundering "options". In most of homes I went to, people don't even have a sink in the laundry room, which means you won't wash delicate garments by hand, or take out stains, or do what I do sometimes - just wash the underarms area really quick and not put the whole thing in the machine. And the fact that they don't have anywhere to hang clothes to dry was so weird to me.
I full agree. My dream laundry room has an utility sink, a door to the outdoors, and a half bathroom by it, to together form what my Grandmother called a "mud" room. A place for the "men" to enter by (or use) before they entered the "house". A place to take off dirty boots and outer clothing. A place to wash off machine oil and grime before touching the door to the "house".
@@bcase5328 absolutely! During the pandemic, we got so much use out of our laundry room sink. We'd immediately wash our hands and clean our shoes before entering the house, and wash our masks - much easier than leaving them to be washed whenever we did a load of laundry.
now i'm really appreciating how my parents designed the laundry room in the house when they built it. large basin sink, collapsable countertop and ironing board to use as needed, and something i never thought about until now but always appreciated: upstairs with a sun facing window on the wall with the hanging rod across it. talk about ideal design for air drying.
I always use either the kitchen or bathroom sink for handwashing delicates. My very expensive bras aren't going in a top-loading washer where the center agitator is going to bend the wires up.
My laundry room is in the finished part of my basement, I wish I had a utility sink down there, but being in the basement I'd need a pump, and as the lowest point it would be a back up risk. I've wanted one since I moved in, but have yet to do so. That said, someone in the history of the house put a laundry chute in, which basically ties the bathroom on ground floor to laundry in basement, so I have been able to wash stuff in there, toss it in a plastic bag, and toss it through the chute. Doesn't help for problems found in the laundry room, but not lugging damp clothes about is a help
You don't need to sanitize clothing. I learned a lot about laundering, detergents, fabrics, water, and washing machine care by cloth diapering (yup, poopy laundry). Water softener can be good, but it can also hinder cleaning. Too much softener can give you a suds cushion, and the clothes can't rub together to get clean. Not enough softener can cause minerals to deposit into your clothes, causing discoloration, stiffness, and stink. They used to use pee to clean laundry, so idk if i'd put them on too much of a pedestal. Lol. Using pee to clean poop always seemed funny to me.
Love your enthusiasm for this topic and your thorough research! I do want add one point that I think was missing. While the modern laundry system has its flaws, the automation of laundry has historically been crucial in reducing domestic labor and freeing up time for women especially to pursue work or interests outside of the home. I've lived with both hand-washing and line drying and while I didn't mind the labor for myself and my partner, I think of single parents who work full-time with kids and could not imagine how they would manage the additional task of manual laundering. Just wanted to introduce this counterpoint, as I think that in today's economy (especially in America where social support for families and work-life balance are both rare), many people do not have the time and the energy to commit to manual laundering, and the reasons are often systemic.
Many could argue that we have built the need to two income households with chore automation. Women joined the workforce when automation eliminated the need for a housewife, but this essentially doubled the labor force. This excess supply of labor has halted the need to increase wages as with every generation, more women have gone on to work full time from young adulthood to retirement. Because wages fail to match inflation, working is no longer a choice for women and mothers, but a necessity. Add to this the home chores that have not been automated such as child care, elderly care now come at the cost of losing one parents income or paying for daycare and nursing homes. Overall we have built a worse system for women.
What you said about the labor involved in prior laundry practices and how that labor was looked at is very true. Many people simply could not undertake these things themselves. Others served them as either live in or hired out help. The laundry woman or laundress for the community was often the most poorly educated and poorly paid woman in the community. It was a very looked down upon position, handling peoples filth and secrets, and really hard on a woman's body. Women often took it on only under severe duress, as widows with children and no other support, or as women looked down upon in the community for other reasons. There was an old saying that if the laundry woman found your spare money she kept it by rights. It was viciously underpaid work. And it was an old motif in period books or rags to riches tales that a character was the son or daughter of the laundry woman. Historical laundry practices may have been better in other regards but they were certainly part of a class and labor system many of us wouldn't want to go back to.
I was thinking the same. The same folks who can afford high-efficiency washers and detergents can often pay someone to wash and hang their clothes as well. So, there is a higher barrier to entry into "sustainable" living when we focus on more than just the actual cash dollars spent.
Lots of info in this. I think it’s also important to think about economics, and how people from different economic brackets might do laundry. When I was a single mom for a long time we didn’t have laundry at home. We went to a laundromat, and we only went once a week, and in general, my daughter and I each got 1 load of laundry. I now have at home laundry, and I still only do a load a week, and 2 if I’m doing bedding. I’m always think about ways to protect my clothes from BO and staining so that if I need to, I can wear something more than once. And I have enough undergarments to keep my outer-garments protected from myself.
In my job, we are only given two free uniform polo shirts - fine in the winter months, when I wear an under t-shirt, but in summer, I REALLY notice, because suddenly I'm having to do a load of washing every day, just so that I have a clean top to wear to work! It becomes expensive!
@@OoohItSparkles I work fast food and have one shirt! I think I'm not supposed to keep it when I get a new one, but idk the process for that yet though. I try to work multiple days between washes but between the heat in the kitchen and the grime of the dish pit its a mess that only gets worse if I have days off between shifts and don't wash it.
The longest running mild argument my husband and I have with each other is that I air dry nearly everything and wash a lot of things on the gentle cycle and he looks at the label and says 'You don't have to do that, it says warm/tumble dry' Modern clothing is made out of spider webs and wishes not actual fibers and so I have been babying my clothes for a long time and even more so since I have been changing to buying more expensive/sustainable brands, because even a good brand of t-shirt gets little holes in it during the washing process in my experience.
The 'spider webs and wishes' made me cackle. To add on it, even the quality of the fabric is going down the drain (no pun intended). I have a shirt I bought 15 years ago that is just starting to get holes in it. Meanwhile, some of the shirts I bought a year ago are starting to show wear. And I try to hang dry as often as possible.
@@leah392 Same, I have a shirt from 1998 that I wear as pjamas that has only just started getting little holes in it. But it's the natural consequence of decades of prices staying the same or even getting lower. Something has to give and now it's hard to get people to adjust to the necessary rise in costs.
Instead of using alcohol like vodka, you can use vinegar (the clear kind, I don't know if there's a specific term for it in english, sorry) to sanitize and soften your fabric. I put it in the softener compartment in my washing machine and it works like a charm. (EDIT : forgot to mention that you should only use it with natural fabrics) As a frenchwoman, it was mindblowing for me to learn that drying your clothes outside could be banned. Almost everyone in France does it, even people who live in cities. We have drying racks you can fix on your wall or by your window, people with balconies will have ones you can unfold. I love laundry day, there's nothing better than the smell of freshly washed clothes that dried in the sun !
I'm not sure how the machines are in France but in the USA vinegar will ruin a front loading machine. It breaks down the seals and causes leaks. Vinegar will also break down non natural fabric. I totally agree with using it for cleaning, i use it instead of bleach 😄
@@adrianneporta8032 Oh yeah I don't know about using vinegar in front loading machines, mine opens from the top, I didn't even think about possible issues with the seals 😯And you're right, you should only use vinegar with natural fibers, I forgot to mention that.
I think we need to make a shift in our styling practices to bring back linen undergarments, like pretty chemises under dresses. Wearing a tank or tee under a shirt, or a slip under a skirt or dress is something lots of people don't do anymore, but it saves you from laundering the shirt half as often. Underarm sheilds seem dorky but are made to protect your clothes so you can wash them much less frequently. I also advocate hand washing & air drying clothing whenever possible. It's so much better for the environment and for the garments.
I live in an apt with no washer and dryer, so I bought a small electric washer. Thanks to it I've learned a lot about laundry, starting with how agitation is actually needed to get the oil and dirt out of the fibers. I never understood why they'd show people beating their clothes on rocks and hitting it with paddles. Turns out you actually HAVE to do that to force the water in and get the nasty out. No wonder the stuff I hand washed would stink when I put it back on. Ugh. The little machine works so well and I can monitor if they need another cycle or not. Also we aren't allowed to hang our clothes out to dry but I do laundry on the weekend and no one sees it lol.
This video was both really informative and quite sad. We absolutely have a long way to go. I was flabbergasted to learn that front loading washing machines aren't standard in the US. Here in Norway, you can get top loading ones, but they're mostly for smaller spaces and far from the norm. Not all people have dryers here, and even when we do, I believe most of us use them fairly sparingly to protect our clothes (or maybe I'm the odd one out, having somehow been raised in the depression era while also being a millennial). I stopped using fabric softeners a few months after I moved away from home because I realised they didn't really do anything except adding fragrance I didn't want. While I haven't been able to exclude synthetic fabrics or fast fashion items from my wardrobe (dressing a fat body can be a bit tricky, and being choosy with fabrics isn't all that easy), I am quite impressed by how durable my clothes actually are. I think we have to consider how we wear our clothes, and learn from earlier generations: I have good clothes and home clothes. Good clothes are basically never worn when I'm at home, I change to home clothes when I get home from work or whatever. That way, I can usually get away with wearing that good garnment multiple times before it needs to be washed. When it at some point either doesn't fit all that well, loses its shape or basically just looks worn and sad, it's demoted to a home garnment and will stay in that role until it either doesn't fit or it feels wasteful to wash it - at that point, it will either be turned into rags or recycled. I find that this system both reduces the number times I have to do laundry and keeps my clothes from being worn out. I'm currently wearing a 4 year old "home dress" that was a "good garnment" for two years, had to have its trim removed because it got tattered, and is still going strong.
That's great! I'm from the Netherlands and we do the same here. There are more and more dryers in use I think nowadays but I was raised without it and don't feel any need for them. Also learned to wash underwear on 60 degrees with towels and bedsheets. What you are saying about using worn clothes at home... this is exactly what my mom does, she hardly throws out any clothes! She will have specific clothes for camping trips, gardening or painting aswell. Now my sister and I are stealing her dresses because we love to wear vintage and they're still going strong😂
As far as I’m concerned, the tumble dryer is for things you need to dry fast for whatever reason, such as a child’s cold weather outdoor clothes that got really wet and/or dirty too recently to have dried by the time they’re needed again.
@@ragnkja It's actually also good at disinfecting. Retirement homes and hospitals in Sweden are supposed to wash hot and tumble dry hot. The hot dry air kills whatever was not killed or washed away in the machine.
@@martinfalkjohansson5204 The recommendation to use the hottest setting for hygienic reasons makes sense, since warm, damp environments are places where bacteria thrive, but hot, damp environments are far less so. It also means you don’t have a big drying room that needs to be kept protected from potential contamination while the washing is damp.
“People smelled funky back then!..” Really, most people would’ve just smelled like they’ve been around a bonfire because - well - they’ve have. So many things were done over an open flame, cooking, certain steps of laundry, blacksmithing, etc. Sure, there are the factors of how often they bathed and how, but really they just would’ve smelled smoky.
Woodsmoke is a great deodorant. I've spent a lot of time wild-camping in woodland with friends and you are aware that your skin layer clothing is getting pretty funky after a day or two but your outer warm layers get suffused with woodsmoke - especially if they are wool layers but also true with performance outdoor fabrics - and nobody notices anyone smelling. Granted it'd probably be smellier if we weren't wearing as much, but then it'd probably be warm enough to wash in a stream or somesuch.
@@OldManFerdiad You also have to remember that people were also wearing very breathable and natural undergarments that were normally changed on a fairly frequent basis, so the smell wouldn't have been that bad.
I learned from a older friend how to disinfect my laundry without destroying it. My friend was in her 70s and she told me just what to do. Quarter cup of white vinegar in the slot for fabric softener for every medium load. The vinegar disinfects, and leaves your clothes with no scent. I never do laundry anymore without white vinegar.
Dang! So this means that at the beginning of my shift, my scrubs are poopy with my germs...but 12 hrs later (after changing patients' poopy diapers) the OUTSIDE is now covered with the poopy germs of strangers. Then I come home and wash my poopy scrubs with my other poopy scrubs (and sometimes other clothes), so now everything I own has trace amounts of not only MY poop, but also the poop of my patients all mixed together?!? *extreme disgust noises in nurse*
@@julias5980 Probably to save themselves $. I think the only people they'd wash the scrubs for would be the surgeons (cause blood & gore). & anyone who worked in an infectious disease ward.
From Germany: I have never in my life had a use for a dryer. When i was younger, people would dry their clothes in the backyard or in the cellar, nowadays I can see people drying their clothes from a window where they installed a collapsible rack. I dry mine in the bathroom or on the balcony, though that one has limited space and is not seen from neighbors. But I will definitely sew more undergarments in linen now - you can't get them anywhere - and check our water acidity level (the city has a chart, I believe). I can't believe it is illegal to dry your clothes outside!
The homes in my area of the USA are so poorly made that they will mildew if you hang clothes in a small room and we have houses burn down frequently when people dry clothes over heaters. I'm lucky to have a main room big enough to dry on a rack without mildew.
I have a three armed clothes line in my sewing room because I intend for my clothes to last. This is just what I was taught since I was a child. I am 71 now and have kept most of what my depression era Mother and Grandmother had passed down to me.
For outdoor line drying - really important that black,navy and red clothes are hung inside out to avoid bleaching. (Red is the worst for this. Bedding should be draped over two wires instead of one to allow fresh air to access both sides of the fabric. For indoor drying - really important that the washing machine is clean and when washing add some alcohol or vinegar (2x shot glass doesn’t leave a smell) to kill any odour/mildew causing bacteria/mold In colder weather instead of trying to add heat to dry clothes faster simply add ventilation. Put a fan in front of the drying rack and run for a few hours. This is an effective method down all the way to freezing. Allow some time to vent the room during the day to prevent the humidity causing issues.
Also don't forget to close all buttons and zippers. There is educate when having up the wash. Undergarments are to be hung in the middle. That way you have a wall of clothing in front and back. That way prying eyes don't see them.
Abby has convinced me that our entire world is a lie. As someone who used to live in a suburb with city water (read hard water) to a rural area that uses well water, I have definitely noticed a difference in my clothes and skin. Now I'm considering getting a wash tub and wash board. BRB, gotta go talk to our Amish neighbors. 😆
Well water hardness depends on where you live. My well water is incredibly hard, and I've been hesitant to get a softening system because I have a septic tank.
Not a lie but we have become sooooo lazy that no one wants to take the time away from their phones, games, tv's to do something that will help the planet.
As a thrift-loving germaphobe with specific sensory issues that force me to use a washer and dryer, this video sort of ruined my life. 😅 On the other hand, I’ve been wearing the clothes I have for decades with very little wear and tear despite having a machine with an agitator, so I think avoiding low quality fabrics in clothes will prevent a lot of the damage and waste Abby describes.
Your clothes are still getting clean. Hot water and soap will do the job and disinfect your clothes a good amount. Laundry detergent is not completely ineffective like the video claims (tbh I think the research was a bit biased in this one because she knew the point she wanted to make and _only_ looked up and presented details that supported that point, and also exaggerated some parts to make modern laundry practices sound like more of a catastrophic disaster than they actually are) because of the way the molecules work. One side bonds to water, the other bonds to oils and the dirt and grime gets broken down and washed away, which will also take care of bacteria. Are traditional practices better at this? Perhaps, because you can actually boil the water which kills bacteria more effectively. But It's not a black and white situation where one works and the other doesn't. I assure you, your clothes are still getting clean and you are _definitely_ not walking around with poopy t-shirts, you would know if you were. And if you live in an area with hard water, you can use vinegar to soften it. Don't use more detergent than you need, because that can mess up your clothes and build up in your washer.
Suddenly realizing that's a part of why fast fashion hurts in the long run since some companies like Shein are so focused on making as much clothes as possible, that it fuels the market with low quality fabrics.
Same here, germophobe in control. I wash my clothes frequently and I rarely have to trash clothes. I wear my clothes for years. Most of them are in good conditions.
I've only been using natural fibers for decades. I, too, have a washing machine with an agitator AND a dryer with a sensor--bought new in 1987. Our clothes last & last. Underwear, & linens are bleached lightly--always whites. I remember my grandmother line drying in freezing temps the clothes would actually be frozen. I have tears in my eyes thinking of her poor hands. Dryers are a godsend especially in colder climates. Many things in this video are factually incorrect or don't present the whole picture.
It is illegal because your rain water is sulfuric acid, in part. That is why acid rain is called that. It's sad, but it was caused mostly by humans. Support the scientists who are trying to reverse that. And do your part to stop it happening.
I grew up in Japan line drying everything because we literally didn’t own a dryer, and I remember getting in trouble for hanging out beach towels on the balcony at a hotel in Florida.
I lived in Japan for over a year and our apartments didn't have dryers. We line dried everything--Usually it worked great, you just had to plan ahead for things that took longer to dry.
Whereas I’ve never had such issues anywhere in Europe, where line drying is the norm and tumble dryers are mostly used for winter outdoor clothes that need to be dried quickly, or sometimes for towels as an alternative to fabric softener (that’s right, you never need both, and fabric softener shouldn’t be used for towels anyway because it makes them less absorbent).
If you're worried about your laundry soap, what I often do is shave a thin layer off a bar of laundry soap (like fels naptha or zote) or a bar of people soap. Its fairly cheap, easy to customize to the load (thin slice for fairly clean laundry, a couple slices for really dirty). Just make sure to do stain removal beforehand, simples!
I have a basic recipe for laundry detergent that uses Zote that’s been shredded with a cheese grater. I’ve never in my life had cleaner clothes than with this detergent
European here, and we just dry everything on a rack. Only change was at the beginning of covid we installed a hanging rack (brand is Hangbird, but many other are available, but to look up pictures, I think it is a “clothes airer” in english) and now our floor space is cleared out and the laundry dries even faster on the ceiling. I love it. I do sometimes take our feather pillows and comforter to the washing salon to use the dryer, but I would never buy one myself.
And I forgot, we have a kind of fancy washing machine with an ozone booster to kill bacteria at low temperatures. Sometimes I run things on just that to freshen them up, like jackets.
If you can get your hands on an Australian Hills Hoist do it. They allow a *HUGE* amount of laundry to dry outdoors. In a efficient & relatively compact space.
@@itwasagoodideaatthetime7980 Those are really nice, we have them here too, but we live without a garden, so this wasn’t an option for us, my parents have one.
@@MJohannaS89 I live in a flat & use a collapsible drying racks that I can put out into the sun. They're good for the winter time cause I can use them inside. & put them near to the heater to dry my stuff out. & they fold down easily to store behind the bathroom door.
@@itwasagoodideaatthetime7980 we have one too still for day with extra laundry, but our other covid household additions of a stationary bike and second desk, which both took up floor space, and a robot vacuum that liked to get stuck on the laundry rack legs, we switched the the hanging option.
I feel like I must be doing something “wrong” because I’ve known about hard vs soft water since childhood and I’ve never had a washing machine damage a garment. 🤷🏻♀️ Also over sanitizing has led to a lot of problems with immune systems not developing well, so we have to be careful with that.
We also need to talk about how deodorants and antiperspirants eat and stain fabrics. Our washing machine broke 3 years ago. I wash everything by hand in the bathtub or a sink. Haven't used a clothes dryer in years. Everything gets hung to dry. My water is soft and pH of 8. How I know that is because I'm on a deep well and a septic system. And I never wash my underwear with anything else nor socks. Or with anybody else's laundry.
Oh yes. The deodorants I ended up using as a teen and young adult would leave residue on the fabric that eventually made it stiff, stained, and smelly. I alternate between salt crystal and natural deodorant now and those aren't really a problem.
For drying clothes on a line: I'm allergic to mold, which turns out there is mold spores literally everywhere outside. I break out from head to toe in a rash if I line dry anything outside, and we don't have any good setup to dry clothes in the house. I also physically wouldn't be able to line dry anyway. Unfortunately, buying a good energy efficient dryer isn't in the budget, so we're stuck with an old used one whose sensor definitely doesn't work. I use white vinegar as a softener, works much better. I also have a cesspool so bleach and anything with antibacterial properties is out for laundry and cleaning products in general that might end up going down the drain. I do want to incorporate boiling undergarments and add linen items to my wardrobe. Especially since we tend to wash everything on cold because our hot water is oil and that's expensive
We hang our clothes on an airer in a room with our dehumidifier on. Its cheaper than buying a brand new drier & if you get the right kind they have uv light and filters to remove dust & pollen & mould spores etc from the air. Its not a perfect solution but it might help?
You’re killin me girl 😂 we cloth diapered and we sun dried her poopy pants. They were sanitized UV ironically, and bleached. By the time they had been through my agitator and sunshine they were eat-off-me fresh … and I SOLD her diapers when we potty trained. That’s right. Her USED organic birdseye cotton weave poop catchers SOLD for .40 on the dollar and shipped out all over the country. Would love to see an episode on diapers!!! #clothdiapermom
I remember being a kid in the 80's and wore undershirts under shirts and slips with top and bottom coverage under dresses. When I became an age to wear bras the undershirt wearing stopped. I thought it was all about whether someone could see through, but the whole family was wearing undershirts under thick and opaque clothing. I remember my dad wearing an undershirt under a tshirt and saying he didn't understand the point of tshirts and deciding that they were more comfy without the undershirt. looking back it's around that time that we stopped wearing undershirts. your video gives me a different perspective looking back. I was thinking that the undershirts were about modesty and perhaps it was for our family, but there's other purposes as well. I do still have tshirts, sweaters, sweat shirts, coats, and bedding from the 80's and 90's which I still use. Most of them are in better condition than items from 2000 to recent, but when they get too holy or thin to repair then they become cleaning rags.
I wasn't developed enough to wear a bra until high school so I wore undershirts up until that point to make middle school locker rooms a less embarrassing experience. Now I'm wondering if that kept my middle school uniform shirts cleaner than my high school ones.
I have sheet sets from the late 60's-early 70's that are almost in pristine condition after use for decades (faded badly and elastic gone, though). My husband and I go through a sheet set every two years as the area where his feet go in the fitted sheet wears holes. The fabric is too thin to patch as I keep having to trim and trim to find stable fabric to attach a patch. Just looking at the sheets side by side, there is a huge difference. The 1970s percale sheets have thicker threads and a nice heft. The newer sheets boast a higher thread count by having very fine threads to produce a similar density. We switched to linen around March to see how long they will last. (edit) I was replying to someone discussing sheets and clothes and now I don't see her comment. Not sure where it was now. Haha)
This!! I was also raised in undergarments and I don’t feel properly dressed without them. My grandmother called them “proper foundation garments” which I have always practiced but didn’t understand why until I started historical reenacting (18th c) 12 years ago. I’m a research person so I researched (probably obsessively because I’m a Virgo and detail maniac) fibers, fabrics, uses and care. That was my “aha!” moment and I said “Thank you, Granny!” 😇😁
For line drying laundry - the Hills Hoist (known as a rotary clothes line to non-australians) works really well if you have the space for one, and you can use larger items to hide your smalls that are hung closest to the middle. The parallel lines are also great for hanging lengths of fabric from after prewashing them - kind of looks like this when hung up /\/\/\/\ and the gravity helps remove wrinkles from washing so you don't have to iron as vigorously before you go to cut stuff out.
I live in an apartment building with a communal Hills Hoist, but I use an indoor rack for my underwear. Because A) I don't want everyone seeing my knickers. & B) it stops the pervy neighbour(s) from knicking them.
@@itwasagoodideaatthetime7980 Growing up in the 1970s meant we had a sturdy all-metal one, & could climb all over it. The ones I've used recently (I live in Europe now) seem to sag under the weight of the washing.
Here in Sweden most of the apartment buildings have shared laundry rooms in their basements which you have to book in advance. Thus, due to being forgetful and mildly afraid of the dark I started airing out, hand washing and air drying a lot of my clothing when I was in my twenties and noticed after a while that it was so much better for the garments!
As a kid my mom line dried until the doctor told her that it was causing some of our health issues with the pollen and such that get in your clothes, lol. This makes me want to actually separate my clothes and do the socks and underwear separate, but im in an apartment and dont tend to have the quarters and money to do that amount of loads between towels and bedding and clothes, etc.... especially since i tend to do my laundry on cool because my work has a black dress code.
What if you would wash your underwear with your towels and bedding on a hot setting? That's what I do and I only have two types of washes that way: a 60 degrees wash (towels, underwear and bed sheets) and a 30/40 degrees clothing wash.
Thank you Abby, for making me feel less like a nutter! Laundry and sewing are two of my greatest passions and that is why i had my husband install a somewhat historical (victorian) laundry system in our house. I have been doing our laundry exclusively by hand for about 6 years now and it is the most relaxing and satisfying thing in the world for me. Our current system uses a wood fired boiler to bring the water up to 90°C and two wooden half barrels to wash the laundry in. For detergents i use NaOH for our linen shifts and shirts (baby clothes, menstrual aprons etc.) and Na2CO3 for colored linen and cotton. For softening and color preservation i use strong Vinegar. After letting the laundry drip out over the barrels i let them air-dry outside. Hope you're doing better, and greetings from Bavaria, Emi
@@sarahgirard1405 Sorry, but I don't do videos. But if you would like more information or have specific questions just ask. The way I do my laundry is a multi day prozess and has a lot to do with the way me and my family dress, so I didn't want to wright TMI, since it doesn't really apply to most people. What i didn't mention earlier is that an important step in my laundry is soaking the clothes for 24 h before washing them to make them easier to get clean, this is something you could maybe also try before putting them in a normal washing machine. Schönen Abend noch!
Your set up sounds grand! 🤩 I don't mind hand washing my own clothing in the bathtub now because years ago I was hand washing everything for 13 people. Having 2 bathrooms in the new house sure helps too!
@@adrianneporta8032 Na2CO3 is actually sodium carbonate (aka soda ash) not borax, which is a different compound. Soda ash can be found online from various sources in the US.
More questions than answers. If we had the opportunity to even sew our clothes, it seems the majority of textiles, fabrics, etc, would have to be imported, which could be expensive too. There is no easy answer to any of this, which is pretty frustrating, I must say.
Great-grandma also had cotton-only sheets, no cotton-poly blends. To be truthful, I don't remember either of my grandmothers (born at the turn of the 20th c.) ironing bedding, but I do remember one grandma making me learn how to fold sheets.
Thank you for this video! It confirms all the laundry practices taught by my grandmother (born 1913) which I use to this day, including buying quality clothes of natural fibers or make them yourself (why I started sewing), separate clothing into groups, remove stains and launder gently and air/line dry. My friends and family (mostly in-laws) made fun but I’m still wearing clothes I made 40 years ago (I’m 63) so who’s laughing now!! 🤣
I think one way to help break that cycle would be small things like: not washing the clothing just because you wore it once, but instead let the clothing air out for a few days and than wear it again. That way I wear my jeans like for 10 to 14 days before washing them and for shirts it is like 3 to 7 days. Another small thing which can easily be done and would be good for the clothing would be to either use a washing bag or handwash the more delicate things. I own a lot of clothing for more than five years and even a few things I inherited from my mom.
Great video, and thank you. I appreciate that you didn’t try “solve” the whole issue. When I had a baby I was determined to do cloth diapering. After two washes the cotton diapers were like sandpaper. Not exaggerating. we had hard water, and although the diapers had been expensive, the quality of the cotton may not have been great. I cried. I started using elimination communication to cut down on diaper use, (how our farm ancestors did it) but to do that requires an enormous amount of privilege to stay home and be attached to the baby. Lately I have started mending clothes, out of a tribute to my late mother, who lived as sustainably and frugally as she could. But again, The privilege to spend this time learning how, and the various materials I have acquired from Amazon, many of which have not worked very well because they are not good quality (bad needles, cheap synthetic thread) turns out better materials really help, but again, the money. I think I feel more guilty now than I did a year ago.
Regarding quality supplies, I like to buy vintage needles off of ebay. It's not too expensive, and the quality is incredible! Vintage thread, on the other hand, is sometimes still great, and sometimes very weak and prone to falling apart as you sew.
As a UK resident I have recently switched from tumble drying all my laundry, to hanging it on an airer, because...cost. I can't bring myself to hang it outdoors to dry, however. I live, surrounded by farmland, and there are certain days when anything hung outside just gets covered in bugs of one kind or another. (There's a fact they rarely tell you about outdoor drying.) I also find that clothes are not as soft when not put in a tumble drier.
@@thewordshifter that's probably hard water + bad technique. I dry all our laundry outside, it needs to be shaken out and stretched (but not over-stretched, of course) and then I fold it right there after it dries and I don't have to iron almost anything (except for long skirts and formal shirts).
I live in London and because of the energy crisis here I’ve switched to cold washes (low agitation woollen wash for everything since I assume that uses the least energy) and always using the drying rack. If stiff clothes means I can pay rent and eat food, I’ll put up with stiff clothes. I’m very grossed out though that a cold wash does nothing for sanitisation but at least I can put the drying rack in direct sunlight.
If you give your clothes a really good shake before hanging to dry, it'll help a tonnnn with stiffness. I like to shake em up a few times during the drying process too for good measure if i have time, especially with like denim and towels, shake those fibers out and you'll be golden. I've also read that adding vinegar to the last rinse cycle helps with softening, but ymmv.
Interesting video. I was born in 1957, the youngest child of my parents who were born in 1915 and 1916. Growing up in the 1960s we didn’t have a clothes dryer. We had clothes lines outside to hang our clothes in the summer and in the basement, where the washer was, to hang them in the winter. Also I think initially my mother used a wringer washer. So your video describes a transformation that I have witnessed over the course of my life. I remember my mother being puzzled by the changes in attitudes toward clothing as clothing became more disposable and outer clothing was washed so much more frequently. She was almost offended by the idea of pre-washed jeans that gave them a worn appearance and feel right off the shelf. She kept the strong sense of the value of fabrics that she had grown up with when they mended and protected their clothing.
"Laundry" by Cheryl Mendelson is an amazing reference book for learning to do laundry with actual science. Borax and washing soda are good "water conditioners" that make detergent more effective in hard water. Soap is a bad idea in hard water.
While I am in an area of Newfoundland, Canada that has no restrictions on line drying and in fact a lot of people around where I live do, I’m one that absolutely cannot wear anything that is dried outside. From the time I started school, if not earlier, my clothes had to be tumbled because of my allergies, and while I can be outside, and there is little to no pollution in the rural area I m in, the “fresh air” scent that lingers in line dried clothes actually takes my breath away. When I was in school, mom would do everyone else’s laundry and have to make sure it was put away before I got home, towels and bedding couldn’t be line dried either or had to be stored in an open cupboard for at least 2 weeks before I could use them to get rid of the scent. I believe it’s my pollen, dander and grass allergies that made me so sensitive to it, but man it makes it hard to keep costs down sometimes. Now I’m just me in an apartment with no laundry at all. So every 2/3 weeks I’ll take my clothes to the nearest laundromat about an hours drive away.
I've been told by allergists to not line dry clothes outside because of my pollen and mold allergies. And in winter it's too cold to line dry outside in Minnesota.
Same for me. I've also been told by my allergist not to hang clothes outside. I definitely hang dry a lot of stuff inside on a line I put in my laundry room, but sheets and towels gotta go in the dryer.
@@Lili-xq9sn I add nothing but my handmade detergent that I make myself from the soap that I make for my plethora of allergies and use nothing in the dryer at all except a dryer ball. No softeners of any kind in the wash or in the dryer ever.
I live in the UK and line-drying is definitely the norm here, but as a sensory sensitive autistic person (in a family of autistics) I can definitely see the effect of the dyes and detergents and fragrances in our clothes and bedding etc. This video was really helpful for identifying some changes I can make which might benefit us so thank you for that!
I can't stand the smell of line dried clothes. They end up with a sort of acrid acidic smell (after some research I found it might be to do with ozone levels). Its not usually noticeable when outside, but when the stuff is brought in it reeks. So we hang our clothes on an airer in the living room with our dehumidifier on & get quick drying clothes without the outside smell. Plus I just can't with the texture of line dried clothes/towels. So scritchy scratchy. Such a sensory nightmare! Very overwhelming & unpleasant. Even just thinking about it makes me shudder & need to touch something soft!
Everyone has their own way of doing things but where I live in Southern California, it’s too dusty to line dry anything outside. Since I have a vintage Maytag washer and dryer set from the 1970’s (have two vintage Maytag sets from the 1970’s that are still working) usually what I do is go by the suggested drying times in a vintage Maytag Halo Of Heat dryer owner’s manual from 1962, usually dry small loads for 15 to 20 minutes, medium loads about 25 minutes, large and extra large loads for 35 minutes or so since they will be ‘damp dry’. Afterwards, I’ll hang up my shirts on hangers to let them dry the rest of the way inside. I also only wash my stuff for 3 to 5 minutes (6 minutes is the maximum wash time I’ll wash my shirts) since that’s what Maytag suggested with their wringer and automatics in the 1960’s. Never had anything damaged by only washing stuff for only 3 to 5 minutes and only partially drying my regular clothes, towels and bedding for sure always get 100% dried for sanitary reasons though.
I agree with EVERYTHING you’ve said. I went through this same realisation” about 10 years ago. I remember that every 4 years I used to purchase half a dozen cotton T-shirts and they would last beautifully. Then in the late 90s or the early 2000s, I had to find somewhere else to get my T-shirts and all the shirts available were now made of incredibly thin, often see through material that (in my opinion) dissolved in water. Fast fashion is dreadful. Also, when I was younger, my family traveled a lot and my mother was always aware or asking about the local water and if it was hard or soft etc. and she would add “stuff” to the water to soften it. Also - fabric softener is just a scam so don’t even bother. Separate your whites, darks and ESPECIALLY your smalls or underwear and wash them separately. Whatever the laundry detergent box says to use, you can use half that amount or less. If you can purchase soap flakes, just try it instead of soap powder or liquids - some that contain “optical brighteners” that simply reflects the light, making your cloths look cleaner (but they are NOT). Washing sofa added will make your detergent go further. If you can line dry in the sunlight, please do. Sunlight is a natural disinfectant AND in my opinion, there is nothing nicer than sheets that have been line dried. Oh, and I highly recommend making or purchasing yourself a linen undershirt or singlet. Worn with other natural fibres over the top, you will really notice the difference with your body and clothing remaining cleaner and less smelly for longer. A linen undershirt is amazing, it keeps you cool in the summer and also warmer in the winter. The fabric is sturdy and is easy to wash or simply rinse out and unlike “human-made” fibres it will NOT hold onto the stink. Just remind yourself that when you’re wearing synthetic fibres against your skin, your basically choosing to wear a plastic bag. Obviously synthetic fibres are awesome in outerwear to keep yourself warm etc, but having natural fibre underclothes is the way to go. I’m not wealthy, but slowly swapping out my wardrobe to natural fibres has been the most amazing experience, and I haven’t had to change the way I usually look or dress. Oh and my NEXT project is to save up for a set of linen sheets. ALL my bedding. It’s a big expense, but I am really looking forward to it 🙂
I've never seen linen underwear for sale where I live. I only seen nonwowen linen fabric twice my life. Also, linen bedding cost ten times cotton, which I only can afford like, two sets.
@@Vizivirag linen will long outlast cotton, so it's worth the price for me. Also, linen doesn't seem to fade at all, so even after a year of washing my sheets still look new. I would buy anymore cotton sheets. I like linen better in both summer and winter.
On the note of sanitized laundry - Early in the pandemic there was a lot of discussion about the effectiveness of regular soap. From my understanding, as long on the detergent has consistent contact with the item, it manually breaks apart the lipid layer of germs and kills them. It’s a cool process! Soap is so cool Also I love to boil laundry. It’s so much fun :) and I wish I liked the smell of line dried clothes :( I end up drying everything in various places around my house to avoid it.
It depends on the specific virus and bacteria you're trying to destroy! For example, Norovirus - which causes the stomach bug, doesn't have a lipid layer and cannot be destroyed by much short of bleach or peroxide and maybe high percent alcohol (studies are still ongoing) however, soap is still really good at grabbing onto things and then being flushed down the drain - this is why washing your hands is the best possible way to prevent anything, regardless of how well the germ itself holds up to surfactants, they will pull it off your hand and be rinsed away.
@@wakingcharade so wouldn't that mean washing the clothes with detergent and then rinsing them with water- as a washing machine does- would be an effective way to rid the washing of dirt and germs?
I'm so happy to see this video, it doesn't gross me out, it validates all the things I've been doing to protect my clothing. I've been using a laundry rack in the bath tub in the winter and a laundry line in the summer to dry everything (originally for energy savings). I buy only fabric and clothing that are natural fabrics (micro plastics are evil) and I rarely use the washing machine to launder lighter weight clothing. (Rub board and a bucket usually suffice) I started this as an effort to "de corporatize" my universe, and energy/water savings (I live in the desert, water is a BIG issue) and now to find there are other benefits that I had no knowledge of is fantastic This video made my entire month!
It’s as if you are reading my mind!!! I have started wearing linen under everything and washing less laundry as a result. Also, can we talk about how nobody ever told us that we are actually supposed to wash our washers!! Those things get NASTY!!! I already hang up a lot of my laundry. (ADHD brain sisters unite!) I am working on eliminating my dryer even more! Thanks for this video! I think I really helped my husband understand where my crazy is coming from!😂
YES it seems counter intuitive because it does take more time to hang clothes but as someone with ADHD I find it also helps me keep track of my wardrobe since I know what I own and it doesn’t just mentally disappear…
I knew there would be and ADHD comment somewhere!!!! When you say you wear linen underneath, what does that look like (if that's not to personal of course)? Also about the time taken to hang out clothes - I'm about to move out of home, and I want to try and have almost everything in my closet on coat hangers rather than folded so that it's faster to put away - That said, as an Australian, we don't use a dryer, so hanging out the laundry is the only way I've ever done it!
My three year old front-loading Whirlpool washer came with ads for Affresh, a free sample, and a special setting for "Clean Washer". I thought this was commonplace these days.
Also I’ve starting seeing t-shirts etc as underthings and getting them from places like Patagonia etc (I’m hoping to make some linen ones myself eventually but linen knit of the right weight is hard to find) Also don’t underestimate modern improvements! There’s polyesters that are far more robust and can be treated with antimicrobials that actually dry faster than linen due to the knit (again see Patagonia et Al)
It's so interesting that you brought up the hard water issue. I moved from a place with middle-hard water to a place with extremely hard water about a year ago, and it completely destroyed my hair for about a month before I figured out what was happening. Every time I showered, my hair felt both greasier and more brittle after washing it than before I started. I was literally in tears by the end of the month. Thankfully I figured out what was happening but it required that I went out and completely changed the way that I treated my hair. I have never even thought about the water's affect on my clothes.
@@Kitten_Maru you'll need to buy shampoo with higher amounts of certain ingredients to remove the minerals that build up on your hair in hard water, look up "chelating shampoo". You may want to use it every wash or switch between the more heavy duty shampoo and a more basic one every other wash if it feels like it's stripping your hair too much, whatever works best for you, there's a lot of trial/error to figure out the best balance. You can also get filters for your shower head but I've not tried one myself and seen questionable reviews on their effectiveness.
abby, as a girl being raised in the 1960s my parents were wayyyyy ahead of their time...we lived in a "tiny" house repurposed, reused, raised most of our own food, had cold running water only, so to wash in a wringer washer we had to boil water to wash clothes, having hard water, what mama would do is use baking soda and vinegar they soften AND disinfect the clothes....now when I watch my "homesteading" channels I have to chuckle....now living the way I was raised is called green, leaving a small footprint being self-sufficient, when I was a kid we just called it POVERTY!!!!! wash day literally took all day, boiling and changing the water, hanging the clothes out to dry then the next day was ironing all the clothes...even the sheets!!! thank God Mama wasn't as crazy as some, ironing napkins!!! I still use napkins or hand towels instead of paper towels, and when I see my friends using spray and paper towels to clean, I tell them, just how clean is a thing when one uses basically toilet paper to clean?
I would love to hear updates about your journey regarding this topic. Especially any tips you might have for sourcing quality linen underclothes (for those of us without the time or capacity to make our own) and the process and costs of making these changes to your laundry practices.
I often wear a cotton t-shirt under dresses and shirts etc, to protect my nice items. But it's hard to find them with a wide enough scoop not to show. I have considered trying to sew a modern take on a shift. I would love to see a tutorial for one!
My dad is from the UK and we've been drying our clothes on lines (in the US) for as long as I can remember. He told me a story recently of my grandmother even drying sheets on the line in winter and then shaking or beating them to get the stiffness out. I've moved out but I will sometimes go to their house specifically to line dry my clothes in the sun as my landlord doesn't allow tenants to put up a clothes line or dry clothes outside on the deck (my apartment also doesn't really have even semi-private outdoor space which is its own challenge when bored teenagers are gonna teenager).
As a European who lived in Chicago for several years, I was baffled by the way laundry was done there (not saying it's perfect in Europ though). One of the first thing I did was hook up water softening filters to every water pipe in my appartment (3 pipes + a special for the shower). I went to Target and bought a drying rack that could be set up indoors. Yes it's ugly but at least it doesn't damage my spouse's expensive shirts... I had small sanitizing tablets that I used in Europe put in every load of laundry, they even sanitize with the cold setting. For really dirty clothes, I put alcohol in the first wash and then ran a cycle with the lowest temperature setting if any of the clothes had synthetic fibers. Everything was air dryed except towels and bedsheets (because indoor drying rack), who all went into the extra hot setting for both washing and drying. I know I am privileged to have the means to do all of this, but I thought I'd share, because some ideas might be useful for someone.
I'm in London, UK and have to use a water softener in my washing machine because we have very hard water. The one I use also has an anti bacterial agent in it. We use a spray to extend the length of time between washes, and line dry (outside or in the bathroom) - and I cannot believe there are laws against line drying in parts of the USA!
I’m from Brownsville, TX in the states and I grew up with line dried clothes. I remember hating them because they smelled bad and were always scratchy against my skin. I’m sad that it’s the better option but I’m also confused by the “smells better” comment. I’m wondering now if I also have to move to a city with less air pollution just so my line dried clothing can smell better…
@@sednova it is related to what is in the air, pollution, pollens, etc. I live in mid Missouri (MidMO) and our line dried laundry smells fantastic spring and summer, but can pick up odd smells in the fall when people burn leaves nearby.
What what whaaaaat? Laws against line drying? I’m going to have to investigate this, that’s for sure. (I haven’t watched the full video yet so I’m really interested to find out what Abbie says ❤)
I don’t know that there are actual laws but some private communities have home owners associations that are anti line drying because it’s ugly. But people pay to live there and had a choice of whether or not to buy in that location.
22:32 This is hilarious because in India, the clothes line is ubiquitous and is also a sign of people living in a space. There was even a celebrity here who had a problem because he had a large balcony and people would use it as a communal clothes line without asking him first.
Thank you, Abby. My husband and are building a house. We passed on a beautiful 1.3 acre lot on a pond,, in a lovely nature area in large part because laundry lines and even laundry "Merry Go Rounds" (which I use now) were not allowed by the HOA. We did find another 2 acre lot, on a beautiful lake not far away and their HOA is pretty chill and is mostly to care for the lake and the playground. When my husband asked one of the people who already live there if there was an issue with laundry lines or laundry merry go rounds, the gentleman, who has lived there for years said, "I don't know if it's in the HOA booklet. Nobody's gonna care. Just hang your laundry up if you like." So, we bought the lot and are planning on breaking ground in the Spring! (We did finally get a copy of the HOA rules and no issue with laundry hanging up.) So, now I just need to continue to deal with the northern IL awful incredibly hard water issue. At least I will continue to hang up a lot of our clothes. At least it it's above freezing outside. Otherwise clothes freeze before they dry. And, your hands scream from the pain and the cold. Just one thing, and I'm not trying to be "that watcher" but some people are either in recovery or their partners or other housemates are, so no vodka or Everclear in the house for some. 😉 Is there an alternative? Great video!
From the looks of all the comments, how to do modern laundry could be a research topic. Maybe a pairing of a microbiology student and a fashion/textile student, to work out the most sanitary system that prolongs the fabrics and colors (etc.) and is best for the environment, in both soft and very hard water.
It’s amazing how different things are in the US compared to Paraguay, and yes, I was one of the people screaming at the screen about the ‘just hang them outside’ lol. The only reason we have a dryer at home is to dry towels in winter (or when it’s raining for days and nothing gets dry), but my mom absolutely hates it, and treats it like a necessary evil. If you want heat in your clothes, go with ironing: I still remember that it was promoted as a way to sanitize your clothes too. I’m also amused at some videos here in YT about people discovering ‘soaking’ (almost always is someone from North America) and I’m always like ‘how are you just discovering soaking?’, it’s so common here, especially if your dealing with stains.
I've been afraid to touch an iron since I burned my hand one time as a kid. My mom was ironing our church linens and had left to answer the phone and I was a stupid kid and touched the iron exactly where I wasn't supposed to. It wasn't too bad, just red and hurt. My mom sat with me until I stopped crying, put ice on my hand and explained how irons worked.
My dad had his own laundry methods after my mom passed. He did his whites first (in an old top load, agitator machine) and would catch the wash and rinse water in 5 gallon buckets. (So. Many. Buckets.) Subsequent loads would get the wash water dumped back in the wash cycle with less detergent used. The rinse water would be added to the next rinse and any rinse water left over went into the first wash on the next laundry day. The last wash load's water of the day was collected and dumped in a gray-water setup in his yard. He also generally had a couple of buckets of wash water that he used to soak his pots and pans in. Most of his laundry he hung out on a decades-old square laundry hanger in the back of the yard. He did put his shirts in the dryer because he didn't have an iron. He did this until he got sick with leukemia in 2015.
I learned in school when I was like twelve that we have very soft water here (Gothenburg, Sweden) and that this specifically meant we could get away with using less detergent when washing clothes!
@@AbbyCox The drying rooms are disappearing because capitalism and gentrification etc. Apparently they're not environmentally friendly/economical enough (i.e. landlords don't want to care for communal spaces anymore) so they get replaced by one shitty tumble dryer that break every week and a tiny drying cabinet that are super inefficient! (At least in Linköping)
A good option for limited spaces are collapsible clotheslines. You can put them away when you're not using them, and it'll only be in your way while the clothes are drying. Where I live, it's standard to have them in your laundry room, because why would you spend money on your electric bill when air is free?
Wow... I guess my lifelong dream of having all silk bedsheets and keeping them forever is unrealistic 😁 It's true in France the vast majority of us air-dry our clothes, even in apartments hanging from windows and balconies, or just indoors with a window open. Another issue with our laundry practices is the energy used to heat the cold water which goes into the washing machine. We have readily available hot water in our homes heated by a water heater (however energy efficient it may be) but the washing machines are only connected to the cold water pipe. There are some machines with 2 pipe connections, one for cold and one for hot, but they're very hard to find, in france at least
I have been actively changing my laundry practices the past years and one thing that wasn’t touched on was the volume of product we are recommended to use which isn’t necessary. I now use a powder that requires a tablespoon per load, I buy 150 loads for about $23, which is way cheaper than supermarket brands, (a load is 6 pounds approximately of clothes, about 13-14 tshirts) an ounce of vinegar and a tablespoon of baking soda. People will say you need half a cup of vinegar, you don’t need that much and I don’t use in the rinse cycle because vinegar can destroy rubber gaskets and hoses with over use. I’ve found no difference using tons of vinegar and the single oz. The combo softens the water as well. I use a stain stick and an enzyme solution for various stains to pretreat, I do not use shout or other commercial pre-treat products, they are useless, wet, stain, apply, use a toothbrush, and work on the stain. Finally when I have to use a dryer, I use wool dryer balls, white for lights and a set of dark natural not dyed for darks. These do speed up your drying time as much as 30%. They work. Especially with sheets, the lanolin is removed and unless you’re allergic to wool, highly recommend. I have skin issues and changing my laundry practices improved the quality of my life and I no longer have to use any sort of bleach. My entire laundry kit takes up a 1/4 shelf in the laundry room and I’ve removed 95% of plastic use.
As a Brit, the banning of line drying clothes in the US is freaking insane.
Many HOAs banned line drying due to aesthetics...but after lobbying the state (where I live) has passed laws that make it illegal for HOAs to ban line drying. They can however ban permanent clothes lines...so we get to pay extra to have a clothes line that we can take down when not in use. :p
As an American, I agree 😔
This. It boggles my mind! And fresh, line-dried clothes and sheets are THE BEST!!
@@bun04y My mom had hooks in the walls of the back of our house and our garage. Every Monday, the bundle of clothesline came out and she put up the lines and when the clothes were dry, she took them down again.
Honestly, if my neighbour hasn't had a load out in a week I worry about her - it's how we keep track of our neighbours!
My grandmother grew up in the Netherlands, and she said everyone dried their clothes on a line. We asked her if they were ever embarrassed if the neighbors ever saw their underwear. She said "of course not, everyone has underwear. But if you didn't hang your clothes properly (meaning, straight, evenly spaced, etc) THAT was when you should be embarrassed."
We still do in most of Europe ❤
@@hypatiakovalevskayasklodow9195 We do that in Australia too.
So judging your neighbors based on some aspect of their line dried laundry is worldwide? Wether it's their choice of underwear, their bra size, or how neatly it's hung up. I recall one neighbor commenting on the color palette of my clothing on the line and comparing it to circus costumes. Another person commented on the number of broadcloth shirts (there were 9) but to her it was "so many". Can't win for losing.
Ah, yes, the Dutch cultural concept of "doe toch normaal"!
@@itwasagoodideaatthetime7980 What about old shabby underwear?
A German here. Coming from generations of seamstresses and growing up in a rural area, most of our houses we have dedicated, well-aired rooms for doing laundry and hanging up our clothes when the weather is bad, called „Waschküche“. When it’s nice outside, hanging out our clothes on the line is pretty much the norm. I was also taught to wear an undershirt, and we air our outer layers outside when they are worn, but not stained, so they don’t need to get washed after every single wear. This really helps to maximize their life span. Hearing that some states actually banned people from hanging out their laundry is quite shocking.
There are a lot of laws that rich people get passed to try to keep out or drive out the poors. It's frustrating and classist. It's funny how as soon as upper middle class people started having backyard chickens, all those laws started falling too. Same concept.
My German mother taught me these techniques as well! I credit them with the reason why my clothes last for years.
Hanging clothes indoors when you have the heat on does not save energy. Your heat is still being used to change the phase of the water. So many Europeans think there is something virtuous about hanging clothes to dry indoors when at least half the year, it's not even thrifty.
@@LS-sg8rb My neighbor thought she was getting all hens and ended up getting a rooster, too. I almost ate it.
The laundry room is typically located next to your heating system and you use the heat that ist radiating from there (via a small fan/open space within the walls) or it is in the same room (depending in your type.of heating system: wood/gas/oil/electricity). If your heating system isn't running (in Summer when Solarsystems are providing the hot water) you hanging it outside. This way you save a ton of resources.
Really interesting video, but there is one thing that I have to disagree upon and that is the sanitation part. While there might not be an explicit sanitizing step in our modern laundry routine, surfactants definitely are effective against bacteria etc. The whole point of a detergent is for part of it to be hydrophilic (easily soluble in water) and part of it hydrophobic (easily soluble in oils + fats) so that the hydrophobic part of it binds with non-water-soluble dirt and actually makes the compound of both water soluble after all, so that the dirt can be washed away. Cell membranes (of bacteria and viruses as well as your own cells) are made of lipids (fat), so they do get broken down by detergent. Heat and other chemicals are still helpful of course, but it is simply not true that your normal washing is not effective.
Yes, some bacteria could survive, but mostly, you're fine, don't panic. Also note that the information posted on screen comes from a source that directly profits from you believing that normal detergent doesn't sufficiently clean your laundry by selling you a solution to the claimed problem.
I was looking for this comment!
Try using public laundry mats.
Especially ones owned by apartment complexes, specifically the in ones they charge you to use. Pretty much guaranteed to get covid, an STD, and yeast infection
It really doesn't matter what products you use.
+
If this were Reddit I would give you gold 🏅
Also let's try to remember that modern laundry practices have been absolutely life changing for people (especially women who were basically treated like domestic slaves throughout history).
It's good to critique modern practices, but let's not forget that inventions like the dishwasher and washing machine have made it easier for mothers to have careers and hobbies outside of the home.
I'm glad I don't have to put as much time into washing dishes or doing laundry so I can spend more time on fulfilling hobbies or relaxing after work. Also cool to have time for a career instead of being my husband's maid lol
Anyway these types of videos are interesting, but people shouldn't take "reject technology embrace tradition" from it.
I fully agree that those regulations barring cloths lines should be elliminated. If a person has a backyard which is fenced and someone is offended by seeing the clothes on the line, then the offended person should be told not to look over the fence.
These types of restrictions often happen in developments that have "home-owners associations" (HOA) and they usually don't let you have a fence either. They also often restrict things like political signage, the exterior design and color of your house, and other things like that.
Seeing clothes on a line makes me happy!
American housing is so weird
We live in an HOA that doesn't allow clothes lines, even in the backyard, but does require that our lot is fenced. I'm considering the use of collapsible drying racks, but haven't been able to find sturdy enough ones that the wind won't knock them over.
I found a good one on amazon. The one at IKEA (that looks similar) is very flimsy.
Thank you! Finally a RUclipsr from the US, who actually states in the video, that the experience she talks about is a North American experience.
I get so disturbed by all the "we, modern people, do stuff like this" videos, because they are almost always US point of views and completely missing a disclaimer.
I am from Eastern Europe, and there is so many historical costumer videos on RUclips, where they talk about "this is how people did this a long time ago and we will never know how accurate the descriptions are" - and I am sitting here and thinking that "this is how we STILL do things where I am from.
Preach! The tunnel vision that history is presented with is literally mind boggling. But slowly, its getting better (or at least more aware)
@@AnnaBell033 Make more history vids.
The US is quite detached from the rest of the world, informationally. The media rarely talks about outside world and most people don't know how different life is outside of the US.
@@strekozkaplays that is an extremely lame excuse lol. you don't need to rely on traditional media or travelling for being well informed, the internet is global, being informed about the rest of the world is insanely easy, other countries do it too
@@yoshita4140 it's a very valid reason.
Unless you have existing health conditions you've been warned about you don't need to sanitize your clothes. Yes it sounds icky, but it has zero impact on your health. In the same way that you don't need antibacterial hand wash, the soap + water + movement does the job well enough.
Yes, thank goodness!
Yes, couldn't agree more! Like don't wash your cloth diapers and other clothing together, because they will not require the same type of wash program. But clearly not soiled underwear will not make your other clothes unsanitary. Most of the "private part" bacteria will be washed out of the garments with all the other dirt, any remnants will be unnoticeable. Most of the bacteria found on your clothing are also most likely the same bacteria that's found on your skin, aka. non-pathogenic bacteria you surround yourself with on a daily basis.
Clothes and washing machines can become stinky (not dangerous, just nasty) if not dried properly, like being damp/wet and without ventilation for a long time. This is because bacteria like water and maybe there's a bit of heat, so they like it even more, and they multiply and they get a party going and they have fun, but all that fun creates a distinctive oh-no-I-left-my-laundry-in-the-machine-for-a-week smell (you can thank my room mate from university for that one...). Moral of the story: just wash similar things together and effectively line dry them after, you don't have poopy T-shirts.
- your friendly neighbourhood microbiologist
Yes!
Yes! I was waiting for this comment 😌
This! Considering how good Abby's videos usually are, I'm honestly kind of disappointed to see that kind of misinformation in this video.
Just a tip for anyone alarmed by this video, the solution IS NOT to start adding more detergent to your clothes! Most people already use too much and thats part of the problem. A high efficiency washer using high efficiency detergent only needs a couple tablespoons of detergent to clean your clothes, more is gonna cause buildup and soap scum and clog up the washer. Use minimal detergent, add white vinegar to to combat hard water and soften clothes without buildup, and use dryer balls instead of dryer sheets. Dryer sheets can actually cause the problem Abby talks about where the dryer thinks clothes are dry when they arent; dryer sheet gunk is messing up the sensor.
Yes!!
yes, yes, a thousand times yes!
Is softener still needed by washing this way? And do you perhaps know whether those detergent capsules are enough detergent for one load?
@@DoodlesnDragons softener is bad for your clothes and skin, they are a toxin. I only use vinegar. Even in summer when I hang dry towels (for example) they are not as soft as with softener, but they are not scratchy ... and they soften more with use.
If I need to use the dryer, I add wool dryer balls. (Trader Joe's has a nice set with a bag, and I saw them at Walmart too).
Oh hey, I already do this! It works like a charm and you save so much money on detergent.
16:47 Her source for detergents not sanitizing clothes is literally an ad for laundry soap.
Surfactants already kill bacteria by destroying their outer lipid bilayer (because it's made of the stuff soap removes) spilling out their insides.
Was just about to comment on this. I’ve definitely used detergents in lab to break down the lipid bilayer and that’s what hand soaps do as well. So if they kill bacteria on your hands, detergents should also kill the ones on your clothes.
I know this content is a year old, but THANK YOU. I've taken enough chemistry and biochemistry classes for my degree to know this was misinformation. Also, yes, UV light disinfects, but only to a certain degree in nature, otherwise the sunlight would just kill all bacteria everywhere. If only the US school system had more funding for basic science classes.....
Thanks for this comment. I came across a comment referencing this video today elsewhere on RUclips and the person was making out like Americans don't know cotton exists and that the only way to clean clothes is hot water and sunshine lol. They said cold water doesn't clean clothes!
I would be so down for a video on making “Modern Linen Undergarments”!! From simple undies to slips and shifts and camisoles!
Yes please!!
I was scanning the comments looking for just such a post. Thanks, Courtney. I'm all in for a series of tutorials, linen at the ready.
Yess that would be amazing
This needs more likes.
Yes!
People who live in apartments and have shared laundry facilities often have all those problems in addition to having to use dirty machines that will contain remnants of other people's laundry (never mind pet hair), so even if you attempt to use better products, your clothes will be exposed to other people's products. I have had a couple show downs with the management about my collapsible drying rack that I use on my balcony. Permanent drying lines are illegal (or were the last time I checked the legislation). The marketing of how to clean (and dry) our clothes is part of our pending ecological disaster.
Gotta love that stranger lint. Used to live in a high rise condo with central laundry facility. Best part of moving out was no Condo dues and private washer and dryer!
I was about to mention apartment dwellers. I would *love* to air dry my laundry, and while I have a balcony, it isn't private and I'm actually mildly worried about clothing theft. I also live above the 45th parallel, so not only is it not actually sunny/warm enough the vast majority of the year, when it is warm enough, it's also very smokey because wild fires and having my clothes smell like smoke would be... Not great.
I'm not trying to be all "boo hoo capitalism makes me helpless to do anything waaah" because I actually do hang dry some of my clothing in our kitchen, so I know it's possible, but yanno. It's hard. It's like our society was built to destroy the environment and our bank accounts and it really sucks. I love the everclear idea, I think I'm going to use that. Great video. I have a lot to ponder now. Also how do I clean the top loading washing machine in my unit because I *know* it's disgusting.
@@meganstedman4728 You can buy washing machine cleaner. It's like a tablet or powder you run in an empty hot wash just to clean it. I hear people also just run a cleaning hot wash with baking soda and vinegar or bleach. You also must wipe around the agitator and drum for spilled derergent, scent beads, softener, etc that can build up and cause problems or smells. Probably some tutorials on RUclips somewhere.
I found a vertebra in the communal washing machine at my first apartment. I wish that was the only morbidly terrifying experience I had there.
I straight up hand washed a lot of my clothes and line dried in my bathroom for this exact reason when I lived in my college apartment! The washers were from the early 70’s and besides being *gross*, the agitator would beat the ever loving shit out of your clothes. And the dryers were set to incinerator mode no matter what level you put them on.
It's super interesting seeing this as someone from the Caribbean where our higene practices and clothing practices are totally different. I hand wash delicate thin things. Most Caribbean homes have clothes lines. Some folks will take care to hang bright fabrics in the shade. But most of all we have what we call house or inside clothes and outside clothes. Clothes you wear to work or to go out will never be worn at home. Home clothes are accumulated with lots of odds and ends of outside clothes that got stained or slightly damaged. And most Caribbean ppl shower twice a day, given the climate. It astounds me that Americans just wear jeans and nicer shirts at home. I've got old pj and stained shirts for home. Also beds? Never go on those with outside clothes on. These are deff practices our grand parents and their grandparents passed off to us.
Not all Americans. I grew up with those same ideals from grandma.
@@garlicgirl3149 same. plus from my mother.
I'm American however I do the same thing. I have "nice" clothes for going out. When/if it gets a stain, it then becomes something that I will ONLY wear around the house. These clothes become my cleaning, gardening, and yard work clothes.
……….huh? This comment don’t make a lick of sense. Why would you just run off with all these weird assumptions? For one it’s a big ass country with MANY a culture. How you even get all that from this video? What American media informs you? lol
I knew it was a Caribbean thing
I'm a lolita fashion enthusiast, I've been wearing these garments for 11 years now. This fashion really opened my eyes to modern laundry practices, because it's very common for members of this J-fashion community to be TERRIFIED of washing these dresses. They fully know and understand how hard machines can be on regular clothes, so naturally when it comes to $350-500 dresses they are so scared of cleaning them. Even as brands switched to better dyes that don't bleed and different materials, to this day people are still scared of washing their lolita. It's to a point where I have bought dresses secondhand and received them, knowing the garment was supposed to be white but it's all-over stained yellow, I wash it, and the water comes out opaque brown. And this happens all the time.
I started getting into historical fashion in 2020 through channels like yours and Bernadette Banner, Karolina Zebrowska, etc. etc., and it has inspired me SO much to change how I wear my fashion. I was already taking extra steps to wash my lolita, finding ways to wash it that didn't damage it, and now I've started taking further steps to protect the clothes that I love and care for so much by wearing things like underdresses/chemises beneath them to protect them (and the blouses that I wear with them) from my skin. I've also started paying more attention to what materials the new clothes I buy are made of, including shoes and handbags. If it has fake leather (made from plastic) I refuse to buy it. So thank you so much for making this video, a lot of it was super validating and 100% yes people are afraid of line drying clothes in North America because it looks poor, and it's infuriating.
So for any other lolitas maybe reading this, here's what I've figured out:
-Get cotton nightgowns to wear under your dresses, or linen like Abby mentions but those might be harder to find. I've found ALL of mine in thrift stores, made sure they were labeled 100% cotton so they're comfortable against my skin, etc. You might have to hem it but hemming is the easiest thing in the world to do, and a great way to get into sewing, just look up videos on youtube for it.
-If you're living in an apartment (which many of us are) stop washing your clothes in shared laundry facilities. Get a mini or portable washing machine, mine is a little top loader from Black & Decker. First: with Afterpay/Shop Pay/PayPal Pay in 4/etc you can get most of them for a payment plan of $20-40 a month. Second: It's WAY gentler on your clothes than a regular washing machine because they ONLY use cold water, just turn it inside out and remove anything with pins. Third: Hang your clothes to dry. You can get drying racks for like $20 at Walmart or hang them on the rods for your shower curtains, I do both. Make sure all the lace/ruffles/pintucks/etc are lying flat when it's wet and it'll dry nice, you might just need to steam it real quick afterwards.
-You don't need to use fancy detergents, literally any basic detergent works fine. If you have some food/drink stains, throw a little bit of Oxiclean into the water with the wash and that'll help infinitely.
-Mix vodka with lavender essential oil and white vinegar as a disinfectant spray, you can use this to spray the armpits of a dress if you got really sweaty while wearing it, inside your shoes, etc.
-Stop dry cleaning your dresses I promise you I have yet to come across a single one I can't wash or handwash and it turns out just fine. And I have a LOT of dresses, including velveteen, corduroy, flocked, brocades, jacquard, etc.
Some thoughts:
-I've heard some people say that isopropyl alcohol is BETTER than vodka to use to spray your clothes with? It has a higher alcohol concentration, kills more bacteria, and isn't watered down like vodka is. I haven't tested this yet though and I don't know how dye-safe it is?
-Should we add a dash of white vinegar to our laundry loads in addition to an eco-friendly/homemade detergent? I've seen vinegar mentioned in some historical laundering techniques and it is anti-bacterial, so could this be beneficial? EDIT: Apparently vinegar is also a great method for softening the water you use to clean with, but you'll need to do research to figure out how much to add to turn your hard water to soft water. DEFINITELY DOING THIS IN MY LAUNDRY FROM NOW ON!
-What are some of the best/most eco-friendly methods for making detergent that are ALSO affordable and would be more effective than traditional "DIY detergent" recipes out there, has anyone found one they like or come up with something that seems effective? Really tired of the sham of most store-bought detergents and would like to get into making my own for cheaper instead!
Thanks again for the great video Abby, modern laundry is AWFUL lol!
Terrific comment, especially on the laundering/non-laundering of gothic lolita fashion today. I'm 100% behind the Buy It For Life mentality.
I buy white vinegar in gallon jugs. One of my local stores sells regular 5% "pickling" vinegar and 6% "cleaning" vinegar in gallon jugs. Make sure your white vinegar is made from grain and not some mystery ingredient. Vera Bradley handbags and other cotton products recommends using NO detergent and only white vinegar in the water to wash them. I have been using vinegar for jeans for years and as a final rinse to get detergent residue out of other laundry. Dryer sheets and most other "fabric softeners" put a very thin coating of wax on your garments, read the label. Most do not recommend use on towels and bed linens as the wax blocks their ability to absorb moisture. So don't use them on gym clothes or underclothes or anything that you sweat in, they won't pull the sweat off your body and allow sweat to cool you naturally. Remember that when using drinking alcohol the "proof" is double the percent of actual alcohol in the bottle. Rubbing alcohol comes in several strengths, look for 70% or higher. 91% isopropyl alcohol WILL mess up your manicure, it's a very strong and effective solvent.
Rubbing alcohol WILL SET YOUR WASHING MACHINE ON FIRE. Hand wash only!!!
Edit: I'm glad you've found high enough quality fabrics that can last the washing machine but I've had clothes fall apart just from hand washing, which is what I do to most everything besides bedding and towels. Some things were just sewn to be fixed
@@darladay4766 When we're talking about rubbing alcohol we are not talking about putting it in the washing machine. You can use rubbing alcohol or vodka to separately spray and disinfect garments (insides of shoes, corsets, etc) to give them more wear-time in between washes.
@@chizukekihime oh, I do that smh. In the video she specifically referenced everclear or vodka in the washing machine so when you mentioned rubbing alcohol my brain must've just skipped. Sorry for my inability to read
Another tip is to not automatically put your clothes in the laundry bin after every single wear. Exercise some judgment considering what the garment is, what you did that day, how much you sweat, does it smell/look dirty. Not saying to keep wearing it until it smells but a lot of clothes can be worn 2-3 times (or even sometimes more depending) before washing and it's going to make a big difference on their durability and how many loads of laundry you do already.
Like I rarely ever wash skirts since I wear shorts underneath them, until they get dirt or stains on them.
People don’t do this??
I do this all the time! I hang things up outside of the closet where air can circulate around it overnight, then put it back in the closet to wear again.
I take a steamer to clothes that I've only worn once and intend to wear again before washing. It gets them looking fresh again.
Yes! I have a coat hanger thing in my closet of about 10 hooks and I put my clothes that I've only worn once on it and wear them again before tossing them in the laundry.
This. Especially with things like coats or jeans. I can usually get like 10 wears out of my jeans before they get stained or start to stink.
Hey Abby I think a video on making linen/cotton under gardens for our modern wardrobes would be amazing!
Yes please. And how many would he most practical to have so we're not doing so much hand washing.
Great idea. Yes, please!
I knew nothing about linen before I watched this so I started trying to learn. I keep hearing that linen shouldn't be washed in hot water! How is it that people could boil their linen undergarments? Was there something different about the fabric?
Yes. This.
Yes! I watched this video before bed last night and then dreamt about making linen undergarments. 😆
Not me (a European living in an area of Florida that has banned line drying clothes) hanging my family’s wet laundry in our guest room as I watch this video 😂
I will say, with attempting proper care of clothing and mending when broken instead of replacing, I still own and wear a dress from 15 years ago from a H&M sale. Cheap clothing doesn’t have to be treated like it’s cheap especially when that’s all someone can afford to buy at the time!
Same here, I've always line dried my clothes in a random room or a garage since I can't wait for it to stop raining to do my laundry.
@@niamha301
Having a space to hang laundry that’s under a roof is useful in most climates.
I recently sewed 3 buttons back on 3 different clothing items that came off at the laundromat. And then tried to patch a shirt that had a hole in it that I got from a thrift shop. I didn't want to throw the shirt away it was too cute. I hope I did a good job lol. Guess I'll find out😋
H&M clothes were so much better quality 15 years ago, it's insane. I still have many pieces from then, and have given up on them recently because all fabric became so thin it's see-through.
I only buy cotton clothes, they are amazing. I will say that nowadays its more "quantity over quality". F.e.: jeans. You used to have a pair of jeans for years (my mom said that 15 years for a pair of jeans was normal)... Now I have them for two years and they are worn out and broken (I do reuse the fabric).
Modern underwear is to protect your saucy bits from the awful seams in your modern,poorly made clothes.
I don't know about you, but for me, underwear protects the clothes from my saucy bits. I'm moist.
"Saucy bits" !! That's a keeper!
Much better than "naughty bits."
@@beejls lol I don't know about you but my underwear does both 😂
@@beejls soft AND saucy 😂
We use distilled white vinegar in the "fabric softener" portion of the washing machine to soften the rinse water and help sanitize things. It's also good for keeping colors and whites bright and it's much cheaper than actual fabric softener. It also won't clog up your washing machine.
Yep and the vinegar will also help break down the oils and skin cells and will keep the washer from growing mildew and mold
Edit you also got to be careful to not put to much vinegar as stright vinegar will brake down the rubber
Elasthane can take up a decent amount of vinegar - but it mustn't be used for clothes that have some kind of membrane, like gore-tex. Those are, however , usually to be washed separately anyway, so it isn't much of an issue.
Growing up in Russia, we always had what we called "home clothes" and "outside clothes". Home clothes were usually older comfy, misshapen, patched or stained clothes that are wearable, but that you wouldn't mind getting a beet stain on that you couldn't remove. Outside clothes were things you'd wear to school/work etc.
You'd change as soon as you get home and usually wear the same home clothes the whole week until the next laundry.
You'd also have summer house/playing on the street/gardening clothes, that were basically your old "outside clothes" that did not fit for home or school/work.
In Sweden on the other hand - there is no such thing. Sure, most people usually use their older jeans for gardening or wear sweatpants at home, but the last one is more out of comfort (and bought especially for that) rather than preserving ones clothes.
It really does make a big difference in how long ones clothes last
In the 1960s (USA) we called them 'school clothes' and 'play clothes'.... and used them exactly as your described.
This is interesting, that this concept is being cited from such geographically diverse countries.
I'm thinking this through. I dress up every work day because I'm on video calls, and I like it. But I'm going to think about whether I can use this technique.
I remember my friends, who were mostly taken care of by their grandmother, had to change their school clothes to home clothes as soon as they got home. But it has indeed been mostly forgotten in Nordic countries. It *used to* be a habit here as well, though.
@@LS-sg8rb I have taken this habit into use a couple of years ago. My home clothes are mostly comfy, though some of them are nice enough to be shown in a video call when working from home. I have very few "outdoor clothes" left these days (as they did back in time), and it really saves money.
my family does this too. weird
One aspect that wasn’t mentioned in the video was time. Our modern era views time spent doing tasks so much differently than historic eras. I have three kids and currently pregnant with #4 and I can’t imagine the time it would take just to get through the laundry process of soaking, scrubbing, rinsing, boiling, ringing out, hanging up to dry and ironing! Heck I can’t keep up with folding and putting it all away. And don’t get me started on cloth diapering! There’s a reason laundress/ washer woman was a real occupation for women in historic eras so people who didn’t have time or facilities to do their washing could hire it out. But for most low to medium income households, putting the time in to spend many hours on just washing the clothes was so normal they didn’t think any differently. Now we can’t even fathom putting that much time into laundry yet we will gladly binge watch entire tv series on our smart tvs and not bat an eye.
Cloth diapering isn't that bad if you have an European style washer that actually heats the water, I did it on my fist kids. I couldn't do it in US though with my third kid. First we were traveling, second I'd have no clue how to get those things clean with only lukewarm water.
@@moniaqua_on_youtube don't US wasmachines heat the water?? I only know European machines, I didn't know front loading machines were not a thing in the US.
I used cloth diapers for a little bit, I hated them, my kid would pee once and it would be drenched, including the pants he was wearing. Having to change clothes so often, I gave up on cotton diapers.
@@EmeraldVideosNL As much as I know, no, they are connected to the warm water tube of the house and that's it. If it hasn't changed, it's been a while since I lived there.
Cloth diapers worked mostly well for me and my kids, some accidents included but normally all stayed dry outside :). Sometimes I bought disposable ones but every single time I used them the kids got sore with those and I was happy that the third one could stand the disposable ones.
Bernadette Banner did a video on historical laundry practices a while ago that was really good. I have a hard time imagining doing laundry without being able to just put on a load and walk away from it.
@@anjolitukuafu Was it that one where she took a nice, deep breath of some ammonia vapors and cooked soap in seemingly a pot that might else be used for cooking meals and I thought for myself that some lessons in basic (or even more), dress-related chemistry for dresshistorians wouldn't harm at all? I remember that one, it showed really well all the work related to washing in the past and how well it actually worked out.
This is so fascinating particularly as a person living in the Philippines (and is probably similar in a lot of the "Global South"). So much of our traditional laundry practices that are way more sustainable are being displaced by aggressive marketing from the big multinationals that sell detergents and fabric softeners. I've often been looked at askance when I tell people I refuse to use fabric softeners, and don't use chlorine bleach (vinegar, washing soda and oxy bleach instead).
Also, as someone who also loves line drying...I can't imagine living in a country where I can't line dry at all 😬
It's not the whole country, I think some HOAs are doing it. I've never heard of clotheslines being banned. I love to hang stuff on the clothesline.
the philippines is also a part of the global south :)
As a Honduran, I’ve always thought that our way of hand washing and line drying clothes was way better. It’s a lot more eco friendly. But because in my country the sun beams all day, clothes hey dried. Don’t know if the same can be said about ever changing seasons in places like NY
I’ve never liked fabric softeners! Not even the dryer sheets! Never use them!
@@kateburcroff5209 Exactly. It's only some Home Owners Associations that don't allow laundry lines. As you know the US is a huge, vast country and there are no laws against line drying.
Just some HOAs have weird ideas about what "looks nice." These HOAs are often the same ones where the tell you what color you can paint your house, trim, mailbox, write people up for leaving their garage doors open etc. A few even dis-allow vegetable gardens. (Many HOAs are just there to maintain the pond or lake the houses are on and do not try to control much of anything. They are all different.) My husband and I refused to make an offer on a house just a few days ago, in part because the HOA didn't allow vegetable gardens. (The house was a bit cramped and had little to no storage, too.)
As someone living in Germany, I am pretty confused about much of this. Yes, in some parts here you are not allowed to hang laundry in certain places (like outside the window, or in my case inside the flat - because dampness) but: this means the owner has to supply you with a space to hang laundry. Often in the cellar, where there is also space for everyone to put there own laundry machine (and if you have one dryer). People sometimes have dryers, mostly to keep towels fluffier or to dry other sturdy things.
Obviously, you need to know how hard the water is, so you can adjust the detergent and if necessary add a water softener? (same goes for dishwashers!). How much people separate their clothes differs, but I wouldn't wash underwear with other clothes. I usually wash them at higher temperatures with the towels (with detergent meant for higher temperatures/white cottons). My mother does separate delicate/not delicate, dark/white and (at least while there were 5 people living in her household) would usually separate further by color/ garment type (no jeans in with the blouses/shirts). I also have rules what things I won't wash together, but sometimes get a bit creative if I need to wash but don't have enough of one kind to fill a load.
I'm from Germany too and I agree with everything you said :)
For a lot of people in the US, laundry is treated as a dump and forget it kind of process- toss everything in the washer and then in the dryer when it's done. The only reason I can remember being told to separate out items was due to possible color bleeding from fabrics, nothing to do with sanitary issues.
I live in a German suburb that was mainly build in the 60s and there are washing lines everywhere there might not be a fence or a stone path in the gardens but there will be poles for adding a laundry line 😅
@@yarnellka I think here it greatly depends on your family (as those are usually the ones teaching you). I think my mother mostly sorted by color (because bleeding) and type (because you use a different setting and detergent), but I also think most people would not wash their underwear with, say, dishtowels? I have a cat and got into the habit of never even washing finer clothes directly after the blankets she likes to sit on (as well as catbeds, rugs, cleaning towels) but do another load at a higher temperature (usually sheets) in between. I do lover her, but I do not need more cat hair (or other, err stuff) on my clothes.
I totally agree. I‘m from Germany too and find the thought of washing my underwear with my Shirts very strange. They go in with the towels and socks and are washed hot. Bedsheets are washed seperately and hot, too. Same for cloth diapers, but I know the use of those isn‘t that common. The other clothes are devided in white and colourful/black and delicate fabrics are washed seperately, too. We use oxygen bleach and dose it individually. And use no softener at all.
In college, my roommate and I installed a retractable laundry line between our lofted beds in front of our window. It was incredible! We line dried most of our laundry and our room always smelled so clean and fresh because of it. Our friends laughed at us for it, but it's one of the best decisions we made. And our jeans outlasted everyone else's because we weren't frying them in the dryer ;)
In France, you can get foldable laundry racks to dry clothing. I don’t know if they have dryers. I’ve never seen on anywhere I’ve stayed there.
In Australia most families don’t even have dryers and if they do it’s usually only for emergencies. Majority of families hang their clothes on a line in the backyard.
@@Author.Noelle.Alexandria There's next to no way that France has no dryers, I'd say, since I know them from Switzerland (many people either have access to one or own one) and have seen them used in Belgium. But it's possible that they are much less frequently used in France than I would guess, since such small differences between neighbouring countries exist. One example would be that German people apparently store their cleaning detergents etc. in a way that makes it hard for children to get to them, while in Switzerland, we kind of don't.
You can get around a lot of these issues by wearing your clothes more times before you wash them. Getting an extra day or two out of your tshirt means you reduce the impact of the problems of laundry by 2-3x just because you have washed the clothes less
Thats nice unless you're a sweaty man that works fast food and when not working fast food goes into a woodshop full of sawdust for fun lol. I do however were pants more then once
You mean my laziness in doing laundry is actually paying off?!?!
I've never understood the way many people do laundry, aka wash everything after a single wear. If it's not stinky or stained, I simply don't wash it. My jeans basically get about a yearly wash and as a result, I have several pairs that are more than a decade old. Also, just hanging a sweater etc outside for a couple hours is plenty to refresh it if you didn't sweat in it.
@@lunawolfheart336 yeah, all solutions are individual and don't work for everyone. I'm sure you will find a clothes use cycle that fits your needs :)
@@Narangarath wear everything at least twice before I wash it. Except jeans, those get washed once they look or feel dirty, not before
I'm 60, Australian, and was taught by my Mum to do laundry carefully and respectfully. I still hand wash precious garments, have washed wedding dresses, silk shirts...etc with no ill affects. I love my modern washing machine but feel that an understanding of clothing laundering has been lost. Longevity, effectiveness and environmental factors definitely underpin my practices and its a shame many seem to have no idea of how much they could save by some time spent not only washing garments correctly, but also hanging correctly and ironing correctly.
A really good challenge Abby!
I remember at about 12 or 13yo, having to take the whole family's laundry to the laundrette every Saturday to wash dry & fold (once we had a washing machine, I had to do the ironing on a Sunday after it had line dried). Since I was stuck at the laundrette mostly alone, I read all the old New Idea mags with Martha Gardener, Deirdre Prusak etc & all the old advice columns about how to care for, fix, clean, undo, repair, remove stains - all the stuff that came in so handy when I left home. Last year I found a 1980s edition of Martha Gardener's handbook at The Salvos - it makes me so happy! I too have hand washed many items of silk clothing from shirts to lingerie with zero ill effects. Women have been wearing silk underwear for generations & I'm certain that very few of them, if any, would be willing to take their knickers to a dry cleaner.
@@joannecarroll5504 Hearing you and @Kaytie J, my grandmother trained my mum, who trained me. Those old fashioned Aussie laundry practices. I also use to hand wash silk shirts. Never paid for dry cleaning just a delicate hand wash, roll the excess water in a towel (never wring) and lay flat to dry. Used to boil my daughters white school shirts (cotton) to the get them clean. I always have a big pot for just that purpose. Never use fabric softener - it smells so artificial. Use a fraction of what the recommended dose is for a load. Use a bar of pure soap as a stain cleaner. Rub into garment and let it soak for 12 hours. Throw in wash - all clean. The smell of clean clothes coming off the line after baking all day in a Queensland sun - heavenly. However, we now live in Tassie and run a BNB - have to use that dryer in winter as nothing gets dry.
I'm 26 and live in South America, and yet the practice of washing delicate clothing by hand is just...like, so obvious to me. Grandma and mom taught me that and I do it for like, new delicate clothes (new clothes in general, its a good way to know if they'll bleed and stain everything), new underwear and flowy, sheer clothing in general. Underwear mostly in the summer when it dries super fast, tho. I got my fill of hand-washing everything last year when my machine broke (the only clothes i could pay to have dry cleaned, since there are no laundromats here, were towels and bedsheets, because my poor arms lol)
I’m 30 and trying to learn all this kind of thing, no one ever taught me these things, honestly I’m so embarrassed that I don’t know, but I really do love learning about how we used to do thing just goes to show how the attitude to our ancestors is so wrong Iv always thought this when I heard people talk about them as in them being dumb an that Iv always thought nar so much more to it that can’t be true! Just such a different way of life
Thats awsome. I do a similar thing with washing dishes. The fine china get hand washed and placed on a dish rack to dry wile the tougher dishes go into the dish washer. I do try to wash by hand to save electricity and water as well.
When I lived in the Yucatan, many people had a drying room. It was basically a shed without a roof with laundry lines in the backyard. The sun is brutal there and it ruined anything with elastic very quickly ( I ended up replacing the elastic in all my husband's boxers).
My solution was to hang my clothes in my covered porch on hangers. They take less space on the line and it's one step less.
Also aprons do wonders for protecting your clothing. I like the kind with a bib front and pockets. Speaking of protecting clothing, our ancestors even wore washable sleeve protectors. Collars and cuffs were often removable and could be washed or replaced.
Good call! I have specific clothes diy, gardening, etc and I just bought myslef an apron too!
And in Norway a space for laundry drying would be an airy space with a roof.
My dad sometimes tells me about washing routine in our family when he was a small boy in 50s. It's important to mention that it was a period right after WW2 in an area severely bombed so there were no working water pipes, the only source of water were wells, rivers and springs.
The best water for washing was in a well in about a kilometer distance and they didn't have a horse, so all family members gathered together, took buckets and went to that well to get water. They had to make several voyages back and forth to have enough waterfor washing and rinsing. Dad says that water in the well was very soft, mild and helped to save detergents, that were difficult to buy in post-war period and that the fabric after washing was very soft and pleasant without any fabric conditioners. It was a weekly routine for the whole family.
Also he said that wool and silk were washed with white clay in sea water and then rinsed in fresh water. A perfect place for this was in about kilometer and a half from their home - it was a shore of the sea with little pits filled with white clay and a small spring nearby.
Also he said that his granny's coat was turned about 8 times before it was sent to a landfill.
Oh, and they often used mustard seed powder for washing.
I’m so glad we don’t have to live that way anymore
australian here. the part about line-drying bans is one of a gajillion reasons i think HOAs are dystopian.
Agreed. I can’t imagine not using the hills hoist to dry my stuff. *ESPECIALLY* my sheets & doonas.
It's just so dystopian I tried with an American and she just kept saying oh it's better because it looks nice and nobody trashes you garden. I was like why would people trash your garden?!?!? That's Not Normal behaviour!
Can you elaborate on what you're talking about
@@sarahnaz1544 home owner associations in the US that ban washing lines and say you can't put fences that are the wrong colour or park on the driveway.
@@lucie4185 & your grass can only be so high, you can't plant certain flowers, trees, shrubs. You can only paint your house certain colours, even what kind of holiday decorations you can put up ect. It's basically a few or just sometimes one committee people/person acting like a power mad Nªzi.
If this video doesn't go viral I'm going to be extremely disappointed in YT watchers.
BTW, Italian here: we usually air-dry our clothes. In the last few years you can find dryers in the shops, but I have no idea how much they sell. To me, it sounds so wasteful (and plain stupid) to forcibly dry something that's going to dry anyway if you give it a few hours. It's not like we have just one shirt/skirts etc. I can see that a dryer can be necessary if you live in a ridiculously humid enviroment, but if you are not, they are useless, imo.
Oh, and when my father was a kid (about 60 years ago), my granmother did the laundry by going to 'the' brook with the other women of the village, and boil the clothes and linens in water and ash, rinsing them in the brook, and hanging them to dry on nearby bushes and small trees. It was a day long job, not only for the amount of stuff to clean, but also because they had to climb down the rocky peak the village is perched on to reach the stream. Heavy, heavy work.
(sorry for the humongous comment)
Also an italian! Here, near the sea, I have an older aunt that goes with few friends of hers to a spring of icy water (it's too close to the sea, can' drink it!). they get there super early and spend the first hours of the day (like once a week in the summer ,'cause work, and more often even when the weather is cold!) beating and washing linens and clothes with coal and some more stuff. Always amazed, couldn't last 10 seconds in that gelid water!!
they say they feel good and fresh, and the final outcome is really nice, but it's a really heavy job. they do it mostly for the tradition and the small get together, though i'm not sure if all of them actually have even "adjusted" to having a washing machine!
P.S: not a sign of a drying machine here!
costs of a machine dryer are about the same as a machine washer. they are sold in sets in the U.S. with a tiny markdown for buying both at the same time. A lot of people always buy a set so the appearance matches. I've bought in a set as my old machines were both on their last legs. It's another privilege - convenience to not have to go to a laundromat (communal washing) and pay per load.
I live in northern Europe and clothes dryer was a god send. We do have long and rainy autumn, then very cold but humid winter and then again - a rainy spring. Before that, washing my jeans in colder months meant that I will be able to wear the same jeans only after a week or so. Dresses, skirts that were of the heavier material also were drying for almost a week. And washing your clothes in such a humid climate is not just washing our your sweat (in winter most of use use undergarments for warmth either way). Clothes get dirty and salty and wet when you walk outside in the street, as it's raining, snowing, ice is being salted, etc. I know most of the people are still line drying their clothes where I live, but it takes a lot of time, you cannot dry your clothes outside, cause it's raining constantly, so you are drying your clothes in the room, making it a game "lets hide our laundry fast when people come over". It raises humidity in rooms up to a point where a risk appears for a mold to start growing. Basically - never going back to line drying in winter months. No thank you. In summer - yes, that is a perfect option.
In New England, this year alone, we've had almost 7 months of either rainy, cold and drizzly, or hot and 75% or higher humidity weather. While I have a dehumidifier in my basement, the humidity spikes whenever I do laundry, and while there are some things which will rack dry overnight, anything heavy (or denim) gets mildewy and musty scented before it dries. When the winters drop below 0F it usually goes down to about 45F in my basement, which also isn't conducive to air drying (also in winter, before roads are plowed or if the city shuts down for a blizzard, it can be very difficult to get into town to a laundry or any other place). While I appreciate more temperate climes may allow for inside or outside line drying, access to a dryer here has far more benefit than not.
@@chiaratessitore5628 Ma ciao!!! regarding driers, I live near Milan, and is humid almost all year round. Basically, I don't really understand how air-drying is so impossible elsewhere, if you don't live in an actually exteme climate… in summer you do it outside, in winter you do it inside, where the heater is going. Boh, who knows! Baci! =D
As a plus-size human, I’m all about keeping my clothes nice! It’s tough finding well-made, well-fitting clothes that fit my budget. So thrilled to find more tips on extending wardrobe life.
Thicc af
I feel this so hard. I’m trying to find good fitting clothes in vintage styles and having a 41” waist is NOT helping things.
Thanks for another interesting video! I had some thoughts from my perspective as a nurse: First with regard to sanitizing: In a situation where folks are not very ill, cleaning is enough. The friction, rinsing and detergent removal of oil and dirt carries off most bacteria and viruses. This is generally enough to keep most people from getting ill. If someone in the house is ill with something like COVID, MRSA or C. diff, you might want to step it up. In that case, I would use bleach and the hottest water setting, and dry in the sun. If someone is concerned about, say, E. Coli or stool on underwear in an otherwise healthy household, I would consider using the hottest water setting, and either oxyclean (basically washing soda and baking soda mixed), and/ or a pre rinse with vinegar. These are natural, inexpensive and kill many germs. Especially when combined with the dirt removal/friction/rinsing. Then, like you said in your video, hang them in sunlight. All this, if your clothing label says the fabric can stand up to it. Definitely wear your most wash tolerant clothes when ill. I like your idea about linen underwear. It is difficult to find, though!
I use Lysol’s laundry sanitizer for my clothes. I also work at a heavy-traffic airport. Is it worth the extra cost if I can just mix what you listed above into my laundry instead?
Yes I agree! I have cystic fibrosis and am very careful with my clothes. I o my wear cottons to the hospital that I can truly deep clean without worry (oxyclean and a hot machine wash with vinegar and scent free soap). The rest of my clothes I’m more delicate with because I love fashion and try to preserve them ahaha 😅
@@dandelion_fritters It might be. Vinegar is cheap where I live. Oxyclean is a mix of washing soda (aka borax) and baking soda. You can get giant boxes of those for cheap at Costco or Sams Club. Sometimes at normal grocery stores. Bleach is fairly inexpensive if ypu are ill. All are kind of hard on clothes, though.
Thank you for this! I was wondering how necessary it really is to sanatize our clothes. I never bother, though I do line dry things in sunlight because that's what I have available to me.
There are some really great sellers on Etsy for linen underwear!
FUN (DANGEROUS) FACTS: fabric softeners actually adds a film onto your clothes and make your clothing more flammable and doesn't actually 'soften' your clothes. This can be dangerous when you toss them into the dryer but also in your day to day wear. I'm a fire performer and never used fabric softeners due to the hazard and the gross feeling it causes.
Also some companies sell "fire resistant" baby onesies: 1) this means you should never dry the outfits on high heat, it'll cause it to be very rough on the skin 2) it does not last for ever. its effectiveness is only a year or so. Be aware that it is perfectly fine buying second hand but don't just blindly trust the label. 3) "fire resistant" baby clothes are a bit misleading because its only fire RESISTANT not a retardant, it has a higher flash point (burning temp) and if it reaches beyond that point it will still burn and turn to ash and not melt onto the skin. (synthetics will melt into a pile of molten goo whereas natural fabrics will still burn but turn into a ash and not melt your flesh)
Do not go and buy fabric retardant spray for use on fabric that'll be worn on the skin, it will cause severe irritation/rashes and such because the chemicals are not supposed to be used that way, and it does not make up for the fact a fabric is synthetic and will melt.
Gotta love how all of the children's sleep clothes you find in the store nowadays are the synthetic kind that will melt onto the skin.
I use some wool balls that I got for drying clothes. I like them much better.
Not to mention that athletic clothing explicitly says not to use fabric softener, because it ruins the moisture-wicking properties of the clothing.
This might be a silly question but why would one need their infants' clothes to be flame retardant? Lol. Should not the baby's skin, hair, etc. be more concerning? I am not a child rearer so this is just my assumption. 😂
And the way to avoid fire retardant clothing for children is to put them in snug fitting clothing.
The basis for the law is that children were getting burnt due to being near open flame sources, not house fires, think candles fireplaces stoves, so they over corrected by mandating sleepwear to be fire resistant. Relatively recently it's been reevaluated and clothing for sleepwear for children has to be snug fitting to avoid needing the coating. It's why fabrics will say not for children sleepwear because they don't want to be on the hook for you making a baggy or unfitted pajama set or nightgown for a kid and then have them catch on fire. Because those clothes If purchase should have had the protectant coating.
Tldr: avoid fire retardant sprays by baking children sleepwear very fitted.
I've literally done the trick of dyeing a dress darker to hide a stain! Australian here and my mum gifted me a copy of a book called Spotless and it's essentially a home manual full of every possible stain/fabric combo. I've never experienced those little holes you mentioned but we haven't had agitators for years and don't have hard water. Praise be the Australian tradition of the hills hoist!
Fellow Aussie here. I have the same book and it is a lifesaver! Should be mandatory in all houses! 😂
Not just the Aussie tradition! The Hills Hoist in specific is an Australian invention!
As someone who has always indoor line-dried their clothes: watch out for mould and mildew spreading around the house. Line drying promotes a shit tonne of humidity.
In my experience mould means bad house construction. Water leeking in somewhere and bad airflow troughout the house. If humudity only was the problem showering would be done outside the house.
YES this! Esp in winter! Get some of those salts that capture air moisture if you start sensing that something is off
I had a problem with indoor dried clothes causing black condensation mould to grow on my colder walls. I have now invested in a dehumidifier which is a lot cheaper to run than a dryer and keeps my home fresh and dry too.
@@ItBeThatWaySometimes It also matters where that exhaust fan expels the air. In far too many homes, it just expels it into the attic rather than outside, so you will still have mold and mildew issues.
I discovered that I don't have problems when room in which I dry my clothes has window ajar, and the furniture isn't touching the wall.
That's an important topic. Thank you for the reminder to use my "Wäschespinne" (translates literally as "laundry spider" :) and is basically a rotary cloths dryer) more often. Thank goddess this is allowed in our region.
Some thoughts I have:
- Bleach can also be made with oxygen. Infact I do not have chlorine bleach in my house.
- Bacteria etc. mostly are destroyed at temperatures above about 40° to 45° C (104 - 113 Fahrenheit). If you want to get sure, 60° C (160 F) is a good option, some nasty stuff needs higher temperatures. 90°C (194 F) should help on really most things even without detergent or bleach.
- I never ever wash underwear incidentally with outer garments. It comes, together with the other laundry I want to bleach (towels, washcloths etc.), into the 60°C-cycle. Of course, you need underwear that can stand those temperatures...
- Clothes dryed on a rack outside really smell wonderful in spring when all the flowers bloom. In winter, when some houses in the neighborhood are heated with coal briquetts they don't smell that fine 🥴
- Rubbing the clothes like they did in the past isn't good for fabrics either.
- Hard water can be softened with citric acid. Soda does a good job on it, too.
- Not all was good in the past :)
I think we are privileged today. We can learn from the past and take the best out of both worlds. I wouldn't want to miss my washer (I don't miss the US-style washers that I know though :) ) but we still can think about our washing routines. We do have well functioning devices and chemicals at hand, the challenge is to choose the right ones to be appropriate for the tasks they are used.
Air drying clothes and using distilled white vinegar instead of fabric softener has helped a ton. I also have used baking soda and hydrogen peroxide to get rid of ancient armpit stains. I've also been paying attention to washing instructions in the tags of all my clothes. It's amazing how many shirts say "hand wash only" and "dry clean only." I also don't put any of my blouses in the dryer, unless I'm in a huge rush.
If you use a wood stove, hardwood ash water is awesome for washing clothing, though you will need to use blueing to keep your whites white.
@@katecraig2974 If I ever have the pleasure of using a wood stove, I'll keep that in mind!
When I was a teenager, I stopped letting my mom do my laundry. She messed up too many of my clothes!
I was very poor as an out of town student in the 70's and hand washed everything as I could not afford the laundromat down the road. I soon learned how to treat my clothing better, make better second hand choices in the charity shops and tackle anything from ink to blood stains in my shared bathroom bathtub. I still enjoy hand washing my woolens and underclothing. Great topic, Abby...this could easily be a multi- part topic if you include proper ironing and starching. :)
Proper, efficient ironing and starching would be great to see, I really want to make my shirts look better without having to spend forever on them 😩
@@kagitsune One simple tip is to give each garment taken from the washing machine a good shake after cleaning and prior to placing it in the dryer or hanging it on the clothing line. This relaxes the fibers and helps to prevent set in wrinkles. ;)
When I lived in Eastern Europe I went to an international school. My European classmates would not only wear a piece of clothing many times before laundering it, they would line dry everything.They would spot clean and air everything out between wearings.The school did have dryers, but it seemed only us American students ever used them. Their reasoning was: "If my shirt isn't visibly soiled or sweaty, why should I wash it right away?" This was in the late 1990's, so I have no idea if practices have changed. My fellow Americans would think me disgusting, but I do this now: line dry as much as possible, spot clean, and air things out between wearings. I have folding drying racks, just like we had at the school. They take up little space when not in use and hold a lot of clothing.
Also in the US, and I started airing clothes out between washes years ago because I couldn't afford to do laundry very often - darn apartment building machines that charge money!
As a child in the 60s, my mom would yell at me for throwing clothes in the hamper that I'd only worn once! I've always worn my clothes at least twice before they get washed and I thought it was just my own 'dirty little secret'; now I find out that, once again, I'm not alone!
I don't get it, do people in the US only wear things once before washing? That's madness! If it's not dirty and not smelly then it's perfectly fine to wear a second/third/fourth time. I can't imagine washing anything after one wear except for knickers (UK here) unless they have actually got dirty, sweaty, and/or smelly. Can someone explain this attitude of wear only once then wash?
@@katew7770 It depends on how you grew up and the climate. The way I grew up is that anything worn against the skin like a t-shirt or undergarment is washed every day during the late spring/summer months. Otherwise, I wash my clothes when I run out of clean underwear.
During the spring/summer/autumn months I line dry. In the winter, I use my dryer.
Can attest to the same still being done, at least here in Italy. Clothes go in the washing for only one of three reasons: they’re visibly stained, they don’t pass the smell test or I just can’t remember anymore how many times I’ve worn them. Only exceptions are formals, since I’m not gonna keep a dress out that I might wear again maybe in 6 months.
I'm scrutinizing the way that I was taught to do laundry and wear clothes now. Abby, would you consider making a follow-up video on creating "modern" linen undergarments that could be worn under pants and t-shirts and such?
For the short time I lived in the US, I was stunned by the lack of laundering "options". In most of homes I went to, people don't even have a sink in the laundry room, which means you won't wash delicate garments by hand, or take out stains, or do what I do sometimes - just wash the underarms area really quick and not put the whole thing in the machine. And the fact that they don't have anywhere to hang clothes to dry was so weird to me.
I full agree.
My dream laundry room has an utility sink, a door to the outdoors, and a half bathroom by it, to together form what my Grandmother called a "mud" room. A place for the "men" to enter by (or use) before they entered the "house". A place to take off dirty boots and outer clothing. A place to wash off machine oil and grime before touching the door to the "house".
@@bcase5328 absolutely! During the pandemic, we got so much use out of our laundry room sink. We'd immediately wash our hands and clean our shoes before entering the house, and wash our masks - much easier than leaving them to be washed whenever we did a load of laundry.
now i'm really appreciating how my parents designed the laundry room in the house when they built it. large basin sink, collapsable countertop and ironing board to use as needed, and something i never thought about until now but always appreciated: upstairs with a sun facing window on the wall with the hanging rod across it. talk about ideal design for air drying.
I always use either the kitchen or bathroom sink for handwashing delicates. My very expensive bras aren't going in a top-loading washer where the center agitator is going to bend the wires up.
My laundry room is in the finished part of my basement, I wish I had a utility sink down there, but being in the basement I'd need a pump, and as the lowest point it would be a back up risk. I've wanted one since I moved in, but have yet to do so.
That said, someone in the history of the house put a laundry chute in, which basically ties the bathroom on ground floor to laundry in basement, so I have been able to wash stuff in there, toss it in a plastic bag, and toss it through the chute. Doesn't help for problems found in the laundry room, but not lugging damp clothes about is a help
You don't need to sanitize clothing. I learned a lot about laundering, detergents, fabrics, water, and washing machine care by cloth diapering (yup, poopy laundry). Water softener can be good, but it can also hinder cleaning. Too much softener can give you a suds cushion, and the clothes can't rub together to get clean. Not enough softener can cause minerals to deposit into your clothes, causing discoloration, stiffness, and stink. They used to use pee to clean laundry, so idk if i'd put them on too much of a pedestal. Lol. Using pee to clean poop always seemed funny to me.
It's because of the ammonia content in urine, now you can just buy ammonia by itself. Ammonia is actually a good cleaner and stain remover.
True, and it's why peed on clothes smell so strongly if left to sit. But it's got to be hard on clothes. Especially modern, more fragile fabrics.
Love your enthusiasm for this topic and your thorough research! I do want add one point that I think was missing. While the modern laundry system has its flaws, the automation of laundry has historically been crucial in reducing domestic labor and freeing up time for women especially to pursue work or interests outside of the home. I've lived with both hand-washing and line drying and while I didn't mind the labor for myself and my partner, I think of single parents who work full-time with kids and could not imagine how they would manage the additional task of manual laundering. Just wanted to introduce this counterpoint, as I think that in today's economy (especially in America where social support for families and work-life balance are both rare), many people do not have the time and the energy to commit to manual laundering, and the reasons are often systemic.
Many could argue that we have built the need to two income households with chore automation. Women joined the workforce when automation eliminated the need for a housewife, but this essentially doubled the labor force. This excess supply of labor has halted the need to increase wages as with every generation, more women have gone on to work full time from young adulthood to retirement. Because wages fail to match inflation, working is no longer a choice for women and mothers, but a necessity. Add to this the home chores that have not been automated such as child care, elderly care now come at the cost of losing one parents income or paying for daycare and nursing homes.
Overall we have built a worse system for women.
What you said about the labor involved in prior laundry practices and how that labor was looked at is very true. Many people simply could not undertake these things themselves. Others served them as either live in or hired out help. The laundry woman or laundress for the community was often the most poorly educated and poorly paid woman in the community. It was a very looked down upon position, handling peoples filth and secrets, and really hard on a woman's body. Women often took it on only under severe duress, as widows with children and no other support, or as women looked down upon in the community for other reasons. There was an old saying that if the laundry woman found your spare money she kept it by rights. It was viciously underpaid work. And it was an old motif in period books or rags to riches tales that a character was the son or daughter of the laundry woman. Historical laundry practices may have been better in other regards but they were certainly part of a class and labor system many of us wouldn't want to go back to.
I was thinking the same. The same folks who can afford high-efficiency washers and detergents can often pay someone to wash and hang their clothes as well. So, there is a higher barrier to entry into "sustainable" living when we focus on more than just the actual cash dollars spent.
Lots of info in this. I think it’s also important to think about economics, and how people from different economic brackets might do laundry. When I was a single mom for a long time we didn’t have laundry at home. We went to a laundromat, and we only went once a week, and in general, my daughter and I each got 1 load of laundry. I now have at home laundry, and I still only do a load a week, and 2 if I’m doing bedding. I’m always think about ways to protect my clothes from BO and staining so that if I need to, I can wear something more than once. And I have enough undergarments to keep my outer-garments protected from myself.
Yes the economic factor in all of this is just massive.
In my job, we are only given two free uniform polo shirts - fine in the winter months, when I wear an under t-shirt, but in summer, I REALLY notice, because suddenly I'm having to do a load of washing every day, just so that I have a clean top to wear to work! It becomes expensive!
@@OoohItSparkles I work fast food and have one shirt! I think I'm not supposed to keep it when I get a new one, but idk the process for that yet though. I try to work multiple days between washes but between the heat in the kitchen and the grime of the dish pit its a mess that only gets worse if I have days off between shifts and don't wash it.
The longest running mild argument my husband and I have with each other is that I air dry nearly everything and wash a lot of things on the gentle cycle and he looks at the label and says 'You don't have to do that, it says warm/tumble dry'
Modern clothing is made out of spider webs and wishes not actual fibers and so I have been babying my clothes for a long time and even more so since I have been changing to buying more expensive/sustainable brands, because even a good brand of t-shirt gets little holes in it during the washing process in my experience.
I also put ALL of our underwear (socks bras camisoles underwear, that stuff) in laundry bags to protect them from other clothes and the machine, lol.
@@aeolia80 I do that too. It's shocking how much longer everything lasts.
The 'spider webs and wishes' made me cackle. To add on it, even the quality of the fabric is going down the drain (no pun intended). I have a shirt I bought 15 years ago that is just starting to get holes in it. Meanwhile, some of the shirts I bought a year ago are starting to show wear. And I try to hang dry as often as possible.
@@leah392 Same, I have a shirt from 1998 that I wear as pjamas that has only just started getting little holes in it.
But it's the natural consequence of decades of prices staying the same or even getting lower. Something has to give and now it's hard to get people to adjust to the necessary rise in costs.
I only learned this year that our washing machine and dishwasher has to be set to which hardness our water has.
Instead of using alcohol like vodka, you can use vinegar (the clear kind, I don't know if there's a specific term for it in english, sorry) to sanitize and soften your fabric. I put it in the softener compartment in my washing machine and it works like a charm. (EDIT : forgot to mention that you should only use it with natural fabrics)
As a frenchwoman, it was mindblowing for me to learn that drying your clothes outside could be banned. Almost everyone in France does it, even people who live in cities. We have drying racks you can fix on your wall or by your window, people with balconies will have ones you can unfold. I love laundry day, there's nothing better than the smell of freshly washed clothes that dried in the sun !
White vinegar is the term you were after - why it is called that when it is clear, I have no idea! But in the UK, certainly, white vinegar. :)
@@lizvanwessem2055 oh that's the same term as the french one, then. Thank you !
I'm not sure how the machines are in France but in the USA vinegar will ruin a front loading machine. It breaks down the seals and causes leaks. Vinegar will also break down non natural fabric. I totally agree with using it for cleaning, i use it instead of bleach 😄
I have started using a vinegar based laundry detergent and I LOVE IT.
@@adrianneporta8032 Oh yeah I don't know about using vinegar in front loading machines, mine opens from the top, I didn't even think about possible issues with the seals 😯And you're right, you should only use vinegar with natural fibers, I forgot to mention that.
I think we need to make a shift in our styling practices to bring back linen undergarments, like pretty chemises under dresses. Wearing a tank or tee under a shirt, or a slip under a skirt or dress is something lots of people don't do anymore, but it saves you from laundering the shirt half as often. Underarm sheilds seem dorky but are made to protect your clothes so you can wash them much less frequently.
I also advocate hand washing & air drying clothing whenever possible. It's so much better for the environment and for the garments.
I live in an apt with no washer and dryer, so I bought a small electric washer. Thanks to it I've learned a lot about laundry, starting with how agitation is actually needed to get the oil and dirt out of the fibers. I never understood why they'd show people beating their clothes on rocks and hitting it with paddles. Turns out you actually HAVE to do that to force the water in and get the nasty out. No wonder the stuff I hand washed would stink when I put it back on. Ugh. The little machine works so well and I can monitor if they need another cycle or not. Also we aren't allowed to hang our clothes out to dry but I do laundry on the weekend and no one sees it lol.
This video was both really informative and quite sad. We absolutely have a long way to go. I was flabbergasted to learn that front loading washing machines aren't standard in the US. Here in Norway, you can get top loading ones, but they're mostly for smaller spaces and far from the norm. Not all people have dryers here, and even when we do, I believe most of us use them fairly sparingly to protect our clothes (or maybe I'm the odd one out, having somehow been raised in the depression era while also being a millennial). I stopped using fabric softeners a few months after I moved away from home because I realised they didn't really do anything except adding fragrance I didn't want. While I haven't been able to exclude synthetic fabrics or fast fashion items from my wardrobe (dressing a fat body can be a bit tricky, and being choosy with fabrics isn't all that easy), I am quite impressed by how durable my clothes actually are.
I think we have to consider how we wear our clothes, and learn from earlier generations: I have good clothes and home clothes. Good clothes are basically never worn when I'm at home, I change to home clothes when I get home from work or whatever. That way, I can usually get away with wearing that good garnment multiple times before it needs to be washed. When it at some point either doesn't fit all that well, loses its shape or basically just looks worn and sad, it's demoted to a home garnment and will stay in that role until it either doesn't fit or it feels wasteful to wash it - at that point, it will either be turned into rags or recycled. I find that this system both reduces the number times I have to do laundry and keeps my clothes from being worn out. I'm currently wearing a 4 year old "home dress" that was a "good garnment" for two years, had to have its trim removed because it got tattered, and is still going strong.
That's great! I'm from the Netherlands and we do the same here. There are more and more dryers in use I think nowadays but I was raised without it and don't feel any need for them. Also learned to wash underwear on 60 degrees with towels and bedsheets.
What you are saying about using worn clothes at home... this is exactly what my mom does, she hardly throws out any clothes! She will have specific clothes for camping trips, gardening or painting aswell. Now my sister and I are stealing her dresses because we love to wear vintage and they're still going strong😂
As far as I’m concerned, the tumble dryer is for things you need to dry fast for whatever reason, such as a child’s cold weather outdoor clothes that got really wet and/or dirty too recently to have dried by the time they’re needed again.
@@ragnkja It's actually also good at disinfecting. Retirement homes and hospitals in Sweden are supposed to wash hot and tumble dry hot. The hot dry air kills whatever was not killed or washed away in the machine.
@@martinfalkjohansson5204
The recommendation to use the hottest setting for hygienic reasons makes sense, since warm, damp environments are places where bacteria thrive, but hot, damp environments are far less so. It also means you don’t have a big drying room that needs to be kept protected from potential contamination while the washing is damp.
I refuse to own a front loading washer since my cousin had one and the seal went bad and there was water all over her floor 😬
“People smelled funky back then!..”
Really, most people would’ve just smelled like they’ve been around a bonfire because - well - they’ve have. So many things were done over an open flame, cooking, certain steps of laundry, blacksmithing, etc.
Sure, there are the factors of how often they bathed and how, but really they just would’ve smelled smoky.
Woodsmoke is a great deodorant. I've spent a lot of time wild-camping in woodland with friends and you are aware that your skin layer clothing is getting pretty funky after a day or two but your outer warm layers get suffused with woodsmoke - especially if they are wool layers but also true with performance outdoor fabrics - and nobody notices anyone smelling. Granted it'd probably be smellier if we weren't wearing as much, but then it'd probably be warm enough to wash in a stream or somesuch.
This is an interesting point that I had never considered!
@@OldManFerdiad You also have to remember that people were also wearing very breathable and natural undergarments that were normally changed on a fairly frequent basis, so the smell wouldn't have been that bad.
I learned from a older friend how to disinfect my laundry without destroying it. My friend was in her 70s and she told me just what to do. Quarter cup of white vinegar in the slot for fabric softener for every medium load. The vinegar disinfects, and leaves your clothes with no scent. I never do laundry anymore without white vinegar.
Dang! So this means that at the beginning of my shift, my scrubs are poopy with my germs...but 12 hrs later (after changing patients' poopy diapers) the OUTSIDE is now covered with the poopy germs of strangers.
Then I come home and wash my poopy scrubs with my other poopy scrubs (and sometimes other clothes), so now everything I own has trace amounts of not only MY poop, but also the poop of my patients all mixed together?!?
*extreme disgust noises in nurse*
I use eucalyptus oil it disinfects, softens & makes the clothes smell good. Plus a little goes a *LONG* way.
It still boggles my mind that hospitals don't launder your scrubs for you.
@@julias5980 Probably to save themselves $. I think the only people they'd wash the scrubs for would be the surgeons (cause blood & gore). & anyone who worked in an infectious disease ward.
Sooo glad i work in a kitchen... but then again, that means all my clothes have all the 'regular' ick plus lots of chicken grease, yay. ☹️
Your clothes have less poop on them after washing than before. It's fine. You'll live.
From Germany: I have never in my life had a use for a dryer. When i was younger, people would dry their clothes in the backyard or in the cellar, nowadays I can see people drying their clothes from a window where they installed a collapsible rack. I dry mine in the bathroom or on the balcony, though that one has limited space and is not seen from neighbors. But I will definitely sew more undergarments in linen now - you can't get them anywhere - and check our water acidity level (the city has a chart, I believe). I can't believe it is illegal to dry your clothes outside!
The homes in my area of the USA are so poorly made that they will mildew if you hang clothes in a small room and we have houses burn down frequently when people dry clothes over heaters. I'm lucky to have a main room big enough to dry on a rack without mildew.
I have a three armed clothes line in my sewing room because I intend for my clothes to last. This is just what I was taught since I was a child. I am 71 now and have kept most of what my depression era Mother and Grandmother had passed down to me.
For outdoor line drying - really important that black,navy and red clothes are hung inside out to avoid bleaching. (Red is the worst for this.
Bedding should be draped over two wires instead of one to allow fresh air to access both sides of the fabric.
For indoor drying - really important that the washing machine is clean and when washing add some alcohol or vinegar (2x shot glass doesn’t leave a smell) to kill any odour/mildew causing bacteria/mold
In colder weather instead of trying to add heat to dry clothes faster simply add ventilation. Put a fan in front of the drying rack and run for a few hours. This is an effective method down all the way to freezing.
Allow some time to vent the room during the day to prevent the humidity causing issues.
Also don't forget to close all buttons and zippers. There is educate when having up the wash. Undergarments are to be hung in the middle. That way you have a wall of clothing in front and back. That way prying eyes don't see them.
Abby has convinced me that our entire world is a lie. As someone who used to live in a suburb with city water (read hard water) to a rural area that uses well water, I have definitely noticed a difference in my clothes and skin. Now I'm considering getting a wash tub and wash board. BRB, gotta go talk to our Amish neighbors. 😆
I'm honestly thinking of also going back to handwashing and using spuma di sciampagna to clean clothes
@@elsiehupp mmm pizza with the added ingredients of microplastics, fluoride, and human excrement. Can't beat it!🤢
Well water hardness depends on where you live. My well water is incredibly hard, and I've been hesitant to get a softening system because I have a septic tank.
Bernadette Banner has a video on historic Victorian washing practices. You're welcome. :)
Not a lie but we have become sooooo lazy that no one wants to take the time away from their phones, games, tv's to do something that will help the planet.
As a thrift-loving germaphobe with specific sensory issues that force me to use a washer and dryer, this video sort of ruined my life. 😅 On the other hand, I’ve been wearing the clothes I have for decades with very little wear and tear despite having a machine with an agitator, so I think avoiding low quality fabrics in clothes will prevent a lot of the damage and waste Abby describes.
Probably Ive had some shirts for years and they are fine while others I had for a few months and are all faded. It's really in the material
Your clothes are still getting clean. Hot water and soap will do the job and disinfect your clothes a good amount. Laundry detergent is not completely ineffective like the video claims (tbh I think the research was a bit biased in this one because she knew the point she wanted to make and _only_ looked up and presented details that supported that point, and also exaggerated some parts to make modern laundry practices sound like more of a catastrophic disaster than they actually are) because of the way the molecules work. One side bonds to water, the other bonds to oils and the dirt and grime gets broken down and washed away, which will also take care of bacteria. Are traditional practices better at this? Perhaps, because you can actually boil the water which kills bacteria more effectively. But It's not a black and white situation where one works and the other doesn't. I assure you, your clothes are still getting clean and you are _definitely_ not walking around with poopy t-shirts, you would know if you were.
And if you live in an area with hard water, you can use vinegar to soften it. Don't use more detergent than you need, because that can mess up your clothes and build up in your washer.
Suddenly realizing that's a part of why fast fashion hurts in the long run since some companies like Shein are so focused on making as much clothes as possible, that it fuels the market with low quality fabrics.
Same here, germophobe in control. I wash my clothes frequently and I rarely have to trash clothes. I wear my clothes for years. Most of them are in good conditions.
I've only been using natural fibers for decades. I, too, have a washing machine with an agitator AND a dryer with a sensor--bought new in 1987. Our clothes last & last. Underwear, & linens are bleached lightly--always whites. I remember my grandmother line drying in freezing temps the clothes would actually be frozen. I have tears in my eyes thinking of her poor hands. Dryers are a godsend especially in colder climates. Many things in this video are factually incorrect or don't present the whole picture.
It’s so interesting that historically they used rain water. In some parts of the U.S. it’s also illegal to collect rainwater.
And if you live somewhere dry like Nevada it's impossible to collect enough to do laundry in at any given time of the year lol
I'm sorry WHAT.
But FREEDOM
Why do we have such stupid laws?!
It is illegal because your rain water is sulfuric acid, in part. That is why acid rain is called that. It's sad, but it was caused mostly by humans. Support the scientists who are trying to reverse that. And do your part to stop it happening.
I grew up in Japan line drying everything because we literally didn’t own a dryer, and I remember getting in trouble for hanging out beach towels on the balcony at a hotel in Florida.
Apparently hanging anything outside to dry is seen as low class and most of the USA says low class = bad.
I lived in Japan for over a year and our apartments didn't have dryers. We line dried everything--Usually it worked great, you just had to plan ahead for things that took longer to dry.
Whereas I’ve never had such issues anywhere in Europe, where line drying is the norm and tumble dryers are mostly used for winter outdoor clothes that need to be dried quickly, or sometimes for towels as an alternative to fabric softener (that’s right, you never need both, and fabric softener shouldn’t be used for towels anyway because it makes them less absorbent).
If you're worried about your laundry soap, what I often do is shave a thin layer off a bar of laundry soap (like fels naptha or zote) or a bar of people soap. Its fairly cheap, easy to customize to the load (thin slice for fairly clean laundry, a couple slices for really dirty). Just make sure to do stain removal beforehand, simples!
I have a basic recipe for laundry detergent that uses Zote that’s been shredded with a cheese grater. I’ve never in my life had cleaner clothes than with this detergent
Laundry is one of the most confusing thing ever. We don’t talk enough about the theoretical groundwork enough but thank you.
European here, and we just dry everything on a rack. Only change was at the beginning of covid we installed a hanging rack (brand is Hangbird, but many other are available, but to look up pictures, I think it is a “clothes airer” in english) and now our floor space is cleared out and the laundry dries even faster on the ceiling. I love it. I do sometimes take our feather pillows and comforter to the washing salon to use the dryer, but I would never buy one myself.
And I forgot, we have a kind of fancy washing machine with an ozone booster to kill bacteria at low temperatures. Sometimes I run things on just that to freshen them up, like jackets.
If you can get your hands on an Australian Hills Hoist do it. They allow a *HUGE* amount of laundry to dry outdoors. In a efficient & relatively compact space.
@@itwasagoodideaatthetime7980 Those are really nice, we have them here too, but we live without a garden, so this wasn’t an option for us, my parents have one.
@@MJohannaS89 I live in a flat & use a collapsible drying racks that I can put out into the sun. They're good for the winter time cause I can use them inside. & put them near to the heater to dry my stuff out. & they fold down easily to store behind the bathroom door.
@@itwasagoodideaatthetime7980 we have one too still for day with extra laundry, but our other covid household additions of a stationary bike and second desk, which both took up floor space, and a robot vacuum that liked to get stuck on the laundry rack legs, we switched the the hanging option.
I feel like I must be doing something “wrong” because I’ve known about hard vs soft water since childhood and I’ve never had a washing machine damage a garment. 🤷🏻♀️ Also over sanitizing has led to a lot of problems with immune systems not developing well, so we have to be careful with that.
Even more of a problem is killing *some* of the germs and breeding resistant ones.
We also need to talk about how deodorants and antiperspirants eat and stain fabrics. Our washing machine broke 3 years ago. I wash everything by hand in the bathtub or a sink. Haven't used a clothes dryer in years. Everything gets hung to dry. My water is soft and pH of 8. How I know that is because I'm on a deep well and a septic system. And I never wash my underwear with anything else nor socks. Or with anybody else's laundry.
Oh yes. The deodorants I ended up using as a teen and young adult would leave residue on the fabric that eventually made it stiff, stained, and smelly. I alternate between salt crystal and natural deodorant now and those aren't really a problem.
For drying clothes on a line: I'm allergic to mold, which turns out there is mold spores literally everywhere outside. I break out from head to toe in a rash if I line dry anything outside, and we don't have any good setup to dry clothes in the house. I also physically wouldn't be able to line dry anyway. Unfortunately, buying a good energy efficient dryer isn't in the budget, so we're stuck with an old used one whose sensor definitely doesn't work.
I use white vinegar as a softener, works much better. I also have a cesspool so bleach and anything with antibacterial properties is out for laundry and cleaning products in general that might end up going down the drain. I do want to incorporate boiling undergarments and add linen items to my wardrobe. Especially since we tend to wash everything on cold because our hot water is oil and that's expensive
We hang our clothes on an airer in a room with our dehumidifier on. Its cheaper than buying a brand new drier & if you get the right kind they have uv light and filters to remove dust & pollen & mould spores etc from the air. Its not a perfect solution but it might help?
You’re killin me girl 😂 we cloth diapered and we sun dried her poopy pants. They were sanitized UV ironically, and bleached. By the time they had been through my agitator and sunshine they were eat-off-me fresh … and I SOLD her diapers when we potty trained. That’s right. Her USED organic birdseye cotton weave poop catchers SOLD for .40 on the dollar and shipped out all over the country. Would love to see an episode on diapers!!! #clothdiapermom
Gross
I remember being a kid in the 80's and wore undershirts under shirts and slips with top and bottom coverage under dresses. When I became an age to wear bras the undershirt wearing stopped. I thought it was all about whether someone could see through, but the whole family was wearing undershirts under thick and opaque clothing. I remember my dad wearing an undershirt under a tshirt and saying he didn't understand the point of tshirts and deciding that they were more comfy without the undershirt. looking back it's around that time that we stopped wearing undershirts. your video gives me a different perspective looking back. I was thinking that the undershirts were about modesty and perhaps it was for our family, but there's other purposes as well. I do still have tshirts, sweaters, sweat shirts, coats, and bedding from the 80's and 90's which I still use. Most of them are in better condition than items from 2000 to recent, but when they get too holy or thin to repair then they become cleaning rags.
I wasn't developed enough to wear a bra until high school so I wore undershirts up until that point to make middle school locker rooms a less embarrassing experience. Now I'm wondering if that kept my middle school uniform shirts cleaner than my high school ones.
I have sheet sets from the late 60's-early 70's that are almost in pristine condition after use for decades (faded badly and elastic gone, though). My husband and I go through a sheet set every two years as the area where his feet go in the fitted sheet wears holes. The fabric is too thin to patch as I keep having to trim and trim to find stable fabric to attach a patch. Just looking at the sheets side by side, there is a huge difference. The 1970s percale sheets have thicker threads and a nice heft. The newer sheets boast a higher thread count by having very fine threads to produce a similar density. We switched to linen around March to see how long they will last.
(edit) I was replying to someone discussing sheets and clothes and now I don't see her comment. Not sure where it was now. Haha)
This!! I was also raised in undergarments and I don’t feel properly dressed without them. My grandmother called them “proper foundation garments” which I have always practiced but didn’t understand why until I started historical reenacting (18th c) 12 years ago. I’m a research person so I researched (probably obsessively because I’m a Virgo and detail maniac) fibers, fabrics, uses and care. That was my “aha!” moment and I said “Thank you, Granny!” 😇😁
For line drying laundry - the Hills Hoist (known as a rotary clothes line to non-australians) works really well if you have the space for one, and you can use larger items to hide your smalls that are hung closest to the middle. The parallel lines are also great for hanging lengths of fabric from after prewashing them - kind of looks like this when hung up /\/\/\/\ and the gravity helps remove wrinkles from washing so you don't have to iron as vigorously before you go to cut stuff out.
Can't beat a Hills Hoist! And some fold up, so when not in use they take up minimal space.
I live in an apartment building with a communal Hills Hoist, but I use an indoor rack for my underwear. Because A) I don't want everyone seeing my knickers. & B) it stops the pervy neighbour(s) from knicking them.
@@fikanera838 & if you're a kid it's the *ULTIMATE* play thing - until Mum goes bursar at you for playing with it. 😡🤬🤣
@@itwasagoodideaatthetime7980 Growing up in the 1970s meant we had a sturdy all-metal one, & could climb all over it. The ones I've used recently (I live in Europe now) seem to sag under the weight of the washing.
@@fikanera838 if its a genuine hills hoist it shouldn't sag. Only the knock offs fall apart like that.
Here in Sweden most of the apartment buildings have shared laundry rooms in their basements which you have to book in advance. Thus, due to being forgetful and mildly afraid of the dark I started airing out, hand washing and air drying a lot of my clothing when I was in my twenties and noticed after a while that it was so much better for the garments!
As a kid my mom line dried until the doctor told her that it was causing some of our health issues with the pollen and such that get in your clothes, lol. This makes me want to actually separate my clothes and do the socks and underwear separate, but im in an apartment and dont tend to have the quarters and money to do that amount of loads between towels and bedding and clothes, etc.... especially since i tend to do my laundry on cool because my work has a black dress code.
What if you would wash your underwear with your towels and bedding on a hot setting? That's what I do and I only have two types of washes that way: a 60 degrees wash (towels, underwear and bed sheets) and a 30/40 degrees clothing wash.
Thank you Abby, for making me feel less like a nutter! Laundry and sewing are two of my greatest passions and that is why i had my husband install a somewhat historical (victorian) laundry system in our house. I have been doing our laundry exclusively by hand for about 6 years now and it is the most relaxing and satisfying thing in the world for me. Our current system uses a wood fired boiler to bring the water up to 90°C and two wooden half barrels to wash the laundry in. For detergents i use NaOH for our linen shifts and shirts (baby clothes, menstrual aprons etc.) and Na2CO3 for colored linen and cotton. For softening and color preservation i use strong Vinegar. After letting the laundry drip out over the barrels i let them air-dry outside.
Hope you're doing better, and greetings from Bavaria,
Emi
I would absolutely love to see a video of that. Also in German, I am German! :-) ❤
@@sarahgirard1405
Sorry, but I don't do videos. But if you would like more information or have specific questions just ask. The way I do my laundry is a multi day prozess and has a lot to do with the way me and my family dress, so I didn't want to wright TMI, since it doesn't really apply to most people.
What i didn't mention earlier is that an important step in my laundry is soaking the clothes for 24 h before washing them to make them easier to get clean, this is something you could maybe also try before putting them in a normal washing machine.
Schönen Abend noch!
Na2co3 is borax here in the states. I use this as well when washing as we have extremely hard water
Your set up sounds grand! 🤩 I don't mind hand washing my own clothing in the bathtub now because years ago I was hand washing everything for 13 people. Having 2 bathrooms in the new house sure helps too!
@@adrianneporta8032 Na2CO3 is actually sodium carbonate (aka soda ash) not borax, which is a different compound. Soda ash can be found online from various sources in the US.
More questions than answers. If we had the opportunity to even sew our clothes, it seems the majority of textiles, fabrics, etc, would have to be imported, which could be expensive too. There is no easy answer to any of this, which is pretty frustrating, I must say.
Ironing was used for sanitizing also, hence great grandma ironed her bedsheets. Nobody irons anything anymore!
Great-grandma also had cotton-only sheets, no cotton-poly blends. To be truthful, I don't remember either of my grandmothers (born at the turn of the 20th c.) ironing bedding, but I do remember one grandma making me learn how to fold sheets.
They still iron everything in Italy.
Thank you for this video! It confirms all the laundry practices taught by my grandmother (born 1913) which I use to this day, including buying quality clothes of natural fibers or make them yourself (why I started sewing), separate clothing into groups, remove stains and launder gently and air/line dry. My friends and family (mostly in-laws) made fun but I’m still wearing clothes I made 40 years ago (I’m 63) so who’s laughing now!! 🤣
I think one way to help break that cycle would be small things like: not washing the clothing just because you wore it once, but instead let the clothing air out for a few days and than wear it again. That way I wear my jeans like for 10 to 14 days before washing them and for shirts it is like 3 to 7 days. Another small thing which can easily be done and would be good for the clothing would be to either use a washing bag or handwash the more delicate things. I own a lot of clothing for more than five years and even a few things I inherited from my mom.
Great video, and thank you. I appreciate that you didn’t try “solve” the whole issue. When I had a baby I was determined to do cloth diapering. After two washes the cotton diapers were like sandpaper. Not exaggerating. we had hard water, and although the diapers had been expensive, the quality of the cotton may not have been great. I cried. I started using elimination communication to cut down on diaper use, (how our farm ancestors did it) but to do that requires an enormous amount of privilege to stay home and be attached to the baby. Lately I have started mending clothes, out of a tribute to my late mother, who lived as sustainably and frugally as she could. But again, The privilege to spend this time learning how, and the various materials I have acquired from Amazon, many of which have not worked very well because they are not good quality (bad needles, cheap synthetic thread) turns out better materials really help, but again, the money. I think I feel more guilty now than I did a year ago.
Regarding quality supplies, I like to buy vintage needles off of ebay. It's not too expensive, and the quality is incredible! Vintage thread, on the other hand, is sometimes still great, and sometimes very weak and prone to falling apart as you sew.
As a UK resident I have recently switched from tumble drying all my laundry, to hanging it on an airer, because...cost. I can't bring myself to hang it outdoors to dry, however. I live, surrounded by farmland, and there are certain days when anything hung outside just gets covered in bugs of one kind or another. (There's a fact they rarely tell you about outdoor drying.) I also find that clothes are not as soft when not put in a tumble drier.
Don't forget the birds who give us "gifts" on outside drying
My mother in law line drys all of her clothes and they are all wrinkled and SUPER stiff. 0/10.
@@thewordshifter that's probably hard water + bad technique. I dry all our laundry outside, it needs to be shaken out and stretched (but not over-stretched, of course) and then I fold it right there after it dries and I don't have to iron almost anything (except for long skirts and formal shirts).
I live in London and because of the energy crisis here I’ve switched to cold washes (low agitation woollen wash for everything since I assume that uses the least energy) and always using the drying rack. If stiff clothes means I can pay rent and eat food, I’ll put up with stiff clothes. I’m very grossed out though that a cold wash does nothing for sanitisation but at least I can put the drying rack in direct sunlight.
If you give your clothes a really good shake before hanging to dry, it'll help a tonnnn with stiffness. I like to shake em up a few times during the drying process too for good measure if i have time, especially with like denim and towels, shake those fibers out and you'll be golden. I've also read that adding vinegar to the last rinse cycle helps with softening, but ymmv.
Interesting video. I was born in 1957, the youngest child of my parents who were born in 1915 and 1916. Growing up in the 1960s we didn’t have a clothes dryer. We had clothes lines outside to hang our clothes in the summer and in the basement, where the washer was, to hang them in the winter. Also I think initially my mother used a wringer washer. So your video describes a transformation that I have witnessed over the course of my life.
I remember my mother being puzzled by the changes in attitudes toward
clothing as clothing became more disposable and outer clothing was washed so much more frequently. She was almost offended by the idea of pre-washed jeans that gave them a worn appearance and feel right off the shelf.
She kept the strong sense of the value of fabrics that she had grown up with when they mended and protected their clothing.
I think the wringer washer you grew up with more than likely would have been a Maytag wringer washer.
"Laundry" by Cheryl Mendelson is an amazing reference book for learning to do laundry with actual science. Borax and washing soda are good "water conditioners" that make detergent more effective in hard water. Soap is a bad idea in hard water.
Yes! And she details how to clean a washing machine, which, while not perfect, can ameliorate some of the problems mentioned in the video!
Hey! I just bought this book based on your suggestion! Thank you so much for the tip!
I just checked this book out from my local library because of your recommendation!
While I am in an area of Newfoundland, Canada that has no restrictions on line drying and in fact a lot of people around where I live do, I’m one that absolutely cannot wear anything that is dried outside. From the time I started school, if not earlier, my clothes had to be tumbled because of my allergies, and while I can be outside, and there is little to no pollution in the rural area I m in, the “fresh air” scent that lingers in line dried clothes actually takes my breath away. When I was in school, mom would do everyone else’s laundry and have to make sure it was put away before I got home, towels and bedding couldn’t be line dried either or had to be stored in an open cupboard for at least 2 weeks before I could use them to get rid of the scent. I believe it’s my pollen, dander and grass allergies that made me so sensitive to it, but man it makes it hard to keep costs down sometimes. Now I’m just me in an apartment with no laundry at all. So every 2/3 weeks I’ll take my clothes to the nearest laundromat about an hours drive away.
I've been told by allergists to not line dry clothes outside because of my pollen and mold allergies. And in winter it's too cold to line dry outside in Minnesota.
Same for me. I've also been told by my allergist not to hang clothes outside. I definitely hang dry a lot of stuff inside on a line I put in my laundry room, but sheets and towels gotta go in the dryer.
I add vinegar to my laundry instead of using poisonous softeners.
@@Lili-xq9sn I add nothing but my handmade detergent that I make myself from the soap that I make for my plethora of allergies and use nothing in the dryer at all except a dryer ball. No softeners of any kind in the wash or in the dryer ever.
I live in the UK and line-drying is definitely the norm here, but as a sensory sensitive autistic person (in a family of autistics) I can definitely see the effect of the dyes and detergents and fragrances in our clothes and bedding etc.
This video was really helpful for identifying some changes I can make which might benefit us so thank you for that!
I can't stand the smell of line dried clothes. They end up with a sort of acrid acidic smell (after some research I found it might be to do with ozone levels). Its not usually noticeable when outside, but when the stuff is brought in it reeks. So we hang our clothes on an airer in the living room with our dehumidifier on & get quick drying clothes without the outside smell. Plus I just can't with the texture of line dried clothes/towels. So scritchy scratchy. Such a sensory nightmare! Very overwhelming & unpleasant. Even just thinking about it makes me shudder & need to touch something soft!
Everyone has their own way of doing things but where I live in Southern California, it’s too dusty to line dry anything outside. Since I have a vintage Maytag washer and dryer set from the 1970’s (have two vintage Maytag sets from the 1970’s that are still working) usually what I do is go by the suggested drying times in a vintage Maytag Halo Of Heat dryer owner’s manual from 1962, usually dry small loads for 15 to 20 minutes, medium loads about 25 minutes, large and extra large loads for 35 minutes or so since they will be ‘damp dry’. Afterwards, I’ll hang up my shirts on hangers to let them dry the rest of the way inside.
I also only wash my stuff for 3 to 5 minutes (6 minutes is the maximum wash time I’ll wash my shirts) since that’s what Maytag suggested with their wringer and automatics in the 1960’s. Never had anything damaged by only washing stuff for only 3 to 5 minutes and only partially drying my regular clothes, towels and bedding for sure always get 100% dried for sanitary reasons though.
I agree with EVERYTHING you’ve said. I went through this same realisation” about 10 years ago. I remember that every 4 years I used to purchase half a dozen cotton T-shirts and they would last beautifully. Then in the late 90s or the early 2000s, I had to find somewhere else to get my T-shirts and all the shirts available were now made of incredibly thin, often see through material that (in my opinion) dissolved in water.
Fast fashion is dreadful.
Also, when I was younger, my family traveled a lot and my mother was always aware or asking about the local water and if it was hard or soft etc. and she would add “stuff” to the water to soften it.
Also - fabric softener is just a scam so don’t even bother.
Separate your whites, darks and ESPECIALLY your smalls or underwear and wash them separately.
Whatever the laundry detergent box says to use, you can use half that amount or less. If you can purchase soap flakes, just try it instead of soap powder or liquids - some that contain “optical brighteners” that simply reflects the light, making your cloths look cleaner (but they are NOT).
Washing sofa added will make your detergent go further.
If you can line dry in the sunlight, please do. Sunlight is a natural disinfectant AND in my opinion, there is nothing nicer than sheets that have been line dried.
Oh, and I highly recommend making or purchasing yourself a linen undershirt or singlet. Worn with other natural fibres over the top, you will really notice the difference with your body and clothing remaining cleaner and less smelly for longer.
A linen undershirt is amazing, it keeps you cool in the summer and also warmer in the winter. The fabric is sturdy and is easy to wash or simply rinse out and unlike “human-made” fibres it will NOT hold onto the stink.
Just remind yourself that when you’re wearing synthetic fibres against your skin, your basically choosing to wear a plastic bag.
Obviously synthetic fibres are awesome in outerwear to keep yourself warm etc, but having natural fibre underclothes is the way to go.
I’m not wealthy, but slowly swapping out my wardrobe to natural fibres has been the most amazing experience, and I haven’t had to change the way I usually look or dress.
Oh and my NEXT project is to save up for a set of linen sheets. ALL my bedding. It’s a big expense, but I am really looking forward to it 🙂
I got linen sheets last winter, and they're amazing! Now I'm disappointed when I stay at hotels because sleeping on cotton feels weird.
I've been doing the same! Going for linen underwear next.
I've never seen linen underwear for sale where I live. I only seen nonwowen linen fabric twice my life. Also, linen bedding cost ten times cotton, which I only can afford like, two sets.
@@Vizivirag linen will long outlast cotton, so it's worth the price for me. Also, linen doesn't seem to fade at all, so even after a year of washing my sheets still look new. I would buy anymore cotton sheets. I like linen better in both summer and winter.
@@Lili-xq9sn If I ever see one for sale, I'm planning to save up some money. But for now, there is not an opportunity for me.
On the note of sanitized laundry -
Early in the pandemic there was a lot of discussion about the effectiveness of regular soap. From my understanding, as long on the detergent has consistent contact with the item, it manually breaks apart the lipid layer of germs and kills them. It’s a cool process! Soap is so cool
Also I love to boil laundry. It’s so much fun :) and I wish I liked the smell of line dried clothes :( I end up drying everything in various places around my house to avoid it.
It depends on the specific virus and bacteria you're trying to destroy! For example, Norovirus - which causes the stomach bug, doesn't have a lipid layer and cannot be destroyed by much short of bleach or peroxide and maybe high percent alcohol (studies are still ongoing) however, soap is still really good at grabbing onto things and then being flushed down the drain - this is why washing your hands is the best possible way to prevent anything, regardless of how well the germ itself holds up to surfactants, they will pull it off your hand and be rinsed away.
@@wakingcharade so wouldn't that mean washing the clothes with detergent and then rinsing them with water- as a washing machine does- would be an effective way to rid the washing of dirt and germs?
I'm so happy to see this video, it doesn't gross me out, it validates all the things I've been doing to protect my clothing. I've been using a laundry rack in the bath tub in the winter and a laundry line in the summer to dry everything (originally for energy savings).
I buy only fabric and clothing that are natural fabrics (micro plastics are evil) and I rarely use the washing machine to launder lighter weight clothing. (Rub board and a bucket usually suffice)
I started this as an effort to "de corporatize" my universe, and energy/water savings (I live in the desert, water is a BIG issue) and now to find there are other benefits that I had no knowledge of is fantastic
This video made my entire month!
It’s as if you are reading my mind!!! I have started wearing linen under everything and washing less laundry as a result. Also, can we talk about how nobody ever told us that we are actually supposed to wash our washers!! Those things get NASTY!!! I already hang up a lot of my laundry. (ADHD brain sisters unite!) I am working on eliminating my dryer even more! Thanks for this video! I think I really helped my husband understand where my crazy is coming from!😂
YES it seems counter intuitive because it does take more time to hang clothes but as someone with ADHD I find it also helps me keep track of my wardrobe since I know what I own and it doesn’t just mentally disappear…
I knew there would be and ADHD comment somewhere!!!!
When you say you wear linen underneath, what does that look like (if that's not to personal of course)?
Also about the time taken to hang out clothes - I'm about to move out of home, and I want to try and have almost everything in my closet on coat hangers rather than folded so that it's faster to put away - That said, as an Australian, we don't use a dryer, so hanging out the laundry is the only way I've ever done it!
My three year old front-loading Whirlpool washer came with ads for Affresh, a free sample, and a special setting for "Clean Washer". I thought this was commonplace these days.
Also I’ve starting seeing t-shirts etc as underthings and getting them from places like Patagonia etc (I’m hoping to make some linen ones myself eventually but linen knit of the right weight is hard to find)
Also don’t underestimate modern improvements! There’s polyesters that are far more robust and can be treated with antimicrobials that actually dry faster than linen due to the knit (again see Patagonia et Al)
where did you find your linen undergarments? most linens I find anywhere are made of cotton, which isn't real linen...
It's so interesting that you brought up the hard water issue. I moved from a place with middle-hard water to a place with extremely hard water about a year ago, and it completely destroyed my hair for about a month before I figured out what was happening. Every time I showered, my hair felt both greasier and more brittle after washing it than before I started. I was literally in tears by the end of the month. Thankfully I figured out what was happening but it required that I went out and completely changed the way that I treated my hair. I have never even thought about the water's affect on my clothes.
how did you manage to deal with hard water while showering?
@@Kitten_Maru you'll need to buy shampoo with higher amounts of certain ingredients to remove the minerals that build up on your hair in hard water, look up "chelating shampoo". You may want to use it every wash or switch between the more heavy duty shampoo and a more basic one every other wash if it feels like it's stripping your hair too much, whatever works best for you, there's a lot of trial/error to figure out the best balance.
You can also get filters for your shower head but I've not tried one myself and seen questionable reviews on their effectiveness.
Yeh...this me..rip my scalp
abby, as a girl being raised in the 1960s my parents were wayyyyy ahead of their time...we lived in a "tiny" house repurposed, reused, raised most of our own food, had cold running water only, so to wash in a wringer washer we had to boil water to wash clothes, having hard water, what mama would do is use baking soda and vinegar they soften AND disinfect the clothes....now when I watch my "homesteading" channels I have to chuckle....now living the way I was raised is called green, leaving a small footprint being self-sufficient, when I was a kid we just called it POVERTY!!!!! wash day literally took all day, boiling and changing the water, hanging the clothes out to dry then the next day was ironing all the clothes...even the sheets!!! thank God Mama wasn't as crazy as some, ironing napkins!!! I still use napkins or hand towels instead of paper towels, and when I see my friends using spray and paper towels to clean, I tell them, just how clean is a thing when one uses basically toilet paper to clean?
I would love to hear updates about your journey regarding this topic. Especially any tips you might have for sourcing quality linen underclothes (for those of us without the time or capacity to make our own) and the process and costs of making these changes to your laundry practices.
agreed. I make much of what I wear, but no luck finding linen underwear.
I often wear a cotton t-shirt under dresses and shirts etc, to protect my nice items. But it's hard to find them with a wide enough scoop not to show. I have considered trying to sew a modern take on a shift. I would love to see a tutorial for one!
My dad is from the UK and we've been drying our clothes on lines (in the US) for as long as I can remember. He told me a story recently of my grandmother even drying sheets on the line in winter and then shaking or beating them to get the stiffness out. I've moved out but I will sometimes go to their house specifically to line dry my clothes in the sun as my landlord doesn't allow tenants to put up a clothes line or dry clothes outside on the deck (my apartment also doesn't really have even semi-private outdoor space which is its own challenge when bored teenagers are gonna teenager).
As a European who lived in Chicago for several years, I was baffled by the way laundry was done there (not saying it's perfect in Europ though).
One of the first thing I did was hook up water softening filters to every water pipe in my appartment (3 pipes + a special for the shower).
I went to Target and bought a drying rack that could be set up indoors. Yes it's ugly but at least it doesn't damage my spouse's expensive shirts...
I had small sanitizing tablets that I used in Europe put in every load of laundry, they even sanitize with the cold setting.
For really dirty clothes, I put alcohol in the first wash and then ran a cycle with the lowest temperature setting if any of the clothes had synthetic fibers.
Everything was air dryed except towels and bedsheets (because indoor drying rack), who all went into the extra hot setting for both washing and drying.
I know I am privileged to have the means to do all of this, but I thought I'd share, because some ideas might be useful for someone.
I'm in London, UK and have to use a water softener in my washing machine because we have very hard water. The one I use also has an anti bacterial agent in it. We use a spray to extend the length of time between washes, and line dry (outside or in the bathroom) - and I cannot believe there are laws against line drying in parts of the USA!
I’m from Brownsville, TX in the states and I grew up with line dried clothes. I remember hating them because they smelled bad and were always scratchy against my skin. I’m sad that it’s the better option but I’m also confused by the “smells better” comment. I’m wondering now if I also have to move to a city with less air pollution just so my line dried clothing can smell better…
@@sednova it is related to what is in the air, pollution, pollens, etc. I live in mid Missouri (MidMO) and our line dried laundry smells fantastic spring and summer, but can pick up odd smells in the fall when people burn leaves nearby.
What what whaaaaat?
Laws against line drying?
I’m going to have to investigate this, that’s for sure.
(I haven’t watched the full video yet so I’m really interested to find out what Abbie says ❤)
You have explained the vegetable oil smell in my closet, the stale vegetable smell.
I don’t know that there are actual laws but some private communities have home owners associations that are anti line drying because it’s ugly. But people pay to live there and had a choice of whether or not to buy in that location.
22:32 This is hilarious because in India, the clothes line is ubiquitous and is also a sign of people living in a space. There was even a celebrity here who had a problem because he had a large balcony and people would use it as a communal clothes line without asking him first.
Thank you, Abby. My husband and are building a house. We passed on a beautiful 1.3 acre lot on a pond,, in a lovely nature area in large part because laundry lines and even laundry "Merry Go Rounds" (which I use now) were not allowed by the HOA.
We did find another 2 acre lot, on a beautiful lake not far away and their HOA is pretty chill and is mostly to care for the lake and the playground. When my husband asked one of the people who already live there if there was an issue with laundry lines or laundry merry go rounds, the gentleman, who has lived there for years said, "I don't know if it's in the HOA booklet. Nobody's gonna care. Just hang your laundry up if you like." So, we bought the lot and are planning on breaking ground in the Spring! (We did finally get a copy of the HOA rules and no issue with laundry hanging up.)
So, now I just need to continue to deal with the northern IL awful incredibly hard water issue. At least I will continue to hang up a lot of our clothes. At least it it's above freezing outside. Otherwise clothes freeze before they dry. And, your hands scream from the pain and the cold.
Just one thing, and I'm not trying to be "that watcher" but some people are either in recovery or their partners or other housemates are, so no vodka or Everclear in the house for some. 😉 Is there an alternative?
Great video!
From the looks of all the comments, how to do modern laundry could be a research topic. Maybe a pairing of a microbiology student and a fashion/textile student, to work out the most sanitary system that prolongs the fabrics and colors (etc.) and is best for the environment, in both soft and very hard water.
I would LOVE to see that research!
It’s amazing how different things are in the US compared to Paraguay, and yes, I was one of the people screaming at the screen about the ‘just hang them outside’ lol. The only reason we have a dryer at home is to dry towels in winter (or when it’s raining for days and nothing gets dry), but my mom absolutely hates it, and treats it like a necessary evil. If you want heat in your clothes, go with ironing: I still remember that it was promoted as a way to sanitize your clothes too.
I’m also amused at some videos here in YT about people discovering ‘soaking’ (almost always is someone from North America) and I’m always like ‘how are you just discovering soaking?’, it’s so common here, especially if your dealing with stains.
Soaking is often people finding out their laundry products are building up on the clothes.
I've been afraid to touch an iron since I burned my hand one time as a kid. My mom was ironing our church linens and had left to answer the phone and I was a stupid kid and touched the iron exactly where I wasn't supposed to. It wasn't too bad, just red and hurt. My mom sat with me until I stopped crying, put ice on my hand and explained how irons worked.
My dad had his own laundry methods after my mom passed. He did his whites first (in an old top load, agitator machine) and would catch the wash and rinse water in 5 gallon buckets. (So. Many. Buckets.) Subsequent loads would get the wash water dumped back in the wash cycle with less detergent used. The rinse water would be added to the next rinse and any rinse water left over went into the first wash on the next laundry day. The last wash load's water of the day was collected and dumped in a gray-water setup in his yard. He also generally had a couple of buckets of wash water that he used to soak his pots and pans in. Most of his laundry he hung out on a decades-old square laundry hanger in the back of the yard. He did put his shirts in the dryer because he didn't have an iron. He did this until he got sick with leukemia in 2015.
I learned in school when I was like twelve that we have very soft water here (Gothenburg, Sweden) and that this specifically meant we could get away with using less detergent when washing clothes!
SWEDISH LAUNDRY SYSTEM IS THE BEST SYSTEM IMO. i miss those massive drying rooms 🥲
@@AbbyCox The drying rooms are disappearing because capitalism and gentrification etc. Apparently they're not environmentally friendly/economical enough (i.e. landlords don't want to care for communal spaces anymore) so they get replaced by one shitty tumble dryer that break every week and a tiny drying cabinet that are super inefficient!
(At least in Linköping)
A good option for limited spaces are collapsible clotheslines. You can put them away when you're not using them, and it'll only be in your way while the clothes are drying. Where I live, it's standard to have them in your laundry room, because why would you spend money on your electric bill when air is free?
YES, THIS.
Yuuuus I do that! I have several
Yes
Wow... I guess my lifelong dream of having all silk bedsheets and keeping them forever is unrealistic 😁
It's true in France the vast majority of us air-dry our clothes, even in apartments hanging from windows and balconies, or just indoors with a window open.
Another issue with our laundry practices is the energy used to heat the cold water which goes into the washing machine. We have readily available hot water in our homes heated by a water heater (however energy efficient it may be) but the washing machines are only connected to the cold water pipe. There are some machines with 2 pipe connections, one for cold and one for hot, but they're very hard to find, in france at least
I have been actively changing my laundry practices the past years and one thing that wasn’t touched on was the volume of product we are recommended to use which isn’t necessary.
I now use a powder that requires a tablespoon per load, I buy 150 loads for about $23, which is way cheaper than supermarket brands, (a load is 6 pounds approximately of clothes, about 13-14 tshirts) an ounce of vinegar and a tablespoon of baking soda. People will say you need half a cup of vinegar, you don’t need that much and I don’t use in the rinse cycle because vinegar can destroy rubber gaskets and hoses with over use.
I’ve found no difference using tons of vinegar and the single oz. The combo softens the water as well.
I use a stain stick and an enzyme solution for various stains to pretreat, I do not use shout or other commercial pre-treat products, they are useless, wet, stain, apply, use a toothbrush, and work on the stain.
Finally when I have to use a dryer, I use wool dryer balls, white for lights and a set of dark natural not dyed for darks. These do speed up your drying time as much as 30%. They work. Especially with sheets, the lanolin is removed and unless you’re allergic to wool, highly recommend.
I have skin issues and changing my laundry practices improved the quality of my life and I no longer have to use any sort of bleach.
My entire laundry kit takes up a 1/4 shelf in the laundry room and I’ve removed 95% of plastic use.