Brutkey

Sini Tuulia
@sinituulia@eldritch.cafe

Laundry tips and opinions which were requested:

Using fabric softener will make cotton feel clammy and greasy, and give it a mildewy smell. Fabric conditioning helps with staticky plastic fibres but isn't necessary for natural fibres! Just wash without. Never put it on towels, it stops their absorption powers. You can use a little bit of vinegar instead of fabric softener, it will have a mild smell when wet, dries odourless.

Line drying is less wear on clothes than dryer but live your life if you have no place to dry them!

Bedding needs to be washed super hot occasionally! Towels, too!

If your shirts smell terrible because you've been sweating into them, soak them in the sink with a cup of vinegar in room temperature water, rinse, wash normally. This kills a lot of mildew and helps break apart organic residue.

Liquid laundry detergent is silly! Just get detergent in powder form, you're spared the plastic bottles and no heavy liquids are ferried around.
Soap nuts are great if you're allergic to everything but soap nuts. They're not even nuts and are compostable!

A lot of the washing instructions are LIES. You can literally boil 100% cotton and it's fine! You'd be amazed how much dry clean only is not! Polyester and cotton will be just dandy in 60 Celsius - the manufacturers play it safe because some dyes fade in hotter temps. Cheaply made clothes may shrink, but if it's stinky, take the risk!

Jenny Fx
@urbanfoxe@mastodon.ie

@sinituulia@eldritch.cafe how do I get sweat stains out of pillow cases and shirt underarms?


Sini Tuulia
@sinituulia@eldritch.cafe

@urbanfoxe@mastodon.ie You might not, unless they're white! The slight acidity, oiliness and saltiness of sweat tends to create stains in coloured fabric by changing the actual composition or amount of dye in the fabric, and it's fairly impossible to change it back...
If on white fabric, the yellowing is due to all the various things and you can bleach it out with some effort.
🤔🤔 A small bottle of stain remover was less anxiety inducing to handle than a big bottle of bleach, though.

When using deodorant with aluminium the salts tend to react with the dyes and oxidise, I once got weird dark grey green stains on a light blue shirt! Never came off, no matter what I did.