Laundry questions... share ur wisdom?

Question

what is a good detergent for keeping whites their brightest, colors as vibrant as possible and smells great even when clothes are dry?

my nana said to stop washing my clothes in warm water and to wash them in cold to keep the dyes from fading or leaking onto other clothes...will cold water get them as clean as warm/hot water does? will cold water shrink my clothes? can all my clothes be washed in cold even if the tag says machine wash warm? im so confused :(

what detergent do you use or do you think smells the best?

Answer 1

Gain detergent,leaves your clothes not only white but smelling fresh for days,even after you use it.

Answer 2

The colder the water is that you use, the less your colors will tend to fade.  However you really shouldn't worry about colors leaking onto other clothes all that much.

The only time I really worry about colors leaking onto other clothes is if the color has some sort of red in it.  Red seems to wash out easier than other colors.  Keep in mind that hot pink and orange also have red in them.  Anytime I have a piece of clothing with red in it or some variation of red, I wash it by itself for at least the first time.  Sometimes the first 2 or 3 times.  After it is washed the first couple of times it should be ok and should not be prone to leaking onto other clothes.

I normally separate my laundry into a couple of groups:

1.) dark colored clothes

2.) light colored clothes

3.) dark colored towels

4.) light colored towels

5.) whites (undies, socks, etc)

I wash each group separately.  I keep darks separate from lights because I don't like dark lint on my light clothes and vice-versa.  And I keep towels separate from clothes since towels tend to leave big lint particles on clothes.

Whites, I usually wash separately and use hot water and bleach for the whitest whites.

For the rest, I like to use Arm & Hammer detergent.  If the clothes have stains, I'll mix some of the detergent about half and half with water and place it in a small squeeze bottle.  Then I pour the mix onto spots where there are stains.  I'll use an old toothbrush to work the pre-treater in.  If it is a stubborn stain, I'll rub the cloth together against itself.  I don't like to do that unless I have to, since that can wear out the cloth in that spot.

For blood stains, I like to use that Oxy product.  It seems to work well on blood stains.  You can see it foam where the blood is.  I just fill the sink about half full of water add a little of the Oxy stuff and let it soak in warm water with the Oxy stuff for several minutes.

To get my whites whiter, I like to use Purex color-safe bleach.

To avoid getting detergent bleach spots on my clothes, I pour the detergent from the cap into a large old measuring cup.  As the washer fills, I place the cup under the water and let it fill up and overflow until it is diluted, then I pour the diluted portion that is left into the washer.  I haven't gotten bleach spots since.

Most of the ways I do laundry were passed down to me from my mom.  Avoiding bleach spots I learned on my own.

If you want to get the static cling out of your clothes, then use fabric softener and don't let your dryer get the clothes overly dry.  My dryer has Intelli-Dry so that the dryer gets cooler as it gets close to finishing and just lets them tumble dry for the last part.  It also helps avoid wrinkles.

To also help avoid wrinkles I hange the clothes up as soon as they are finished in the dryer.

Make sure you get any stains out before your clothes hit the dryer, especially if you use a warmer setting on your dryer to get the clothes dry quicker.  The heat from the dryer tends to set stains in.  So if you are really concerned about that, let them tumble dry on a low heat setting.