Laundry Secrets: Speed Drying, Cleaning Mildew Stains, Avoiding Wrinkled Polyester and Bleach Dangers

Doing the laundry is dirty business. Just ask Don Henley. If you don't get that jokey reference, then get your head out of Lady Gaga's butt and listen to music outside your realm of comfort. Doing the laundry can be much easier, efficient and effective if you take on some simple tips and advice. So here goes.

Mildew on White Clothing

Closets can easily become akin to a cave where humidity and lack of ventilation work to do their dirty job. Your laundry becomes the victim and you become the object of derision when you show up in a white shirt or dress spotted with mildew. Getting rid of the mildew stains that have already grown on your white clothing is as simple as soaking the clothing in question in a solution of vinegar, liquid bleach and hot water for about an hour. Give the solution a mixture of roughly a tablespoon of vinegar, a half cup of bleach and about two quarts of the hot water.

Speed Drying

Got a dryer that takes to long to get your clothes dry? This can be especially true when drying thick objects like towels. The key to getting the clothing in a dryer to move along more quickly is absorption of moisture inside the machine. You want to get into the wonderful world of speed drying then you need to take a dry towel and stuff it in along with all the wet clothing in the dryer. The dry towel works like a sponge. Only it doesn't have that annoying laugh like the little yellow guy from Bikini Bottom.

Yellow Bed Linens

Over time, bed linens yellow. It's a face of life based on what the linens are used for. Might be easier to invest in a new set of linens, but that can be expensive. Unless you shop at Ross, of course. Man, that Ross has everything cheaper! Anyway, if you want to whiten yellowing linens, grab detergent that you use in your dishwasher. Pour the detergent, keeping in mind that powder form actually works better than liquid, into a pain already filled with water that has reached the boiling point. Place the bed linens into the mixture of detergent and water and give them a good six to eight hours of soaking time. After that period has elapsed, the laundry secret in question is merely to toss them into the washing machine and launder as you normally would.

Bleaching for Newbies

Those who have been laundering their clothes for a while don't need this advice, but some newbies can be pretty slow to realization. Here's a good one: pour your bleach into the washing machine as the tank is filling with water. The one thing you don't want to do is put the clothes in before adding the bleach. Why? Well, try it and when you see the ugly white stains caused by bleach being poured directly onto your clothing, you'll get the idea.

Polyester

The problem with polyester clothing, aside from all the other obvious problems, is that drying them can result in retrieval of clothing items characterized by either wrinkling or shrinking. One laundry secret that is easy enough to put into use is to take any polyester clothes you have drying immediately after the cycle. The longer your polyester products stick around inside the dryer, the greater the likelihood of shrinkage or wrinklage. Um, wrinkling. Wrinkling. Yeah, wrinkling.

Specific Stains

Some stains require specific attacks. Ink, for instance, will come off better if you start by dowsing the clothing so marked in cold water. Same thing holds true for red wine. If you got messy during your dessert course and need to get rid of some chocolate, then immerse a sponge into sudsy water and rinse before placing into the washing machine. Take rubbing alcohol quite literally at its name when you want to address the problem of glue on your clothing.