*Note: this comes from someone who, at
one point, had probably kissed more gay men than straight men and
received for her 18th birthday ironically held at Hooters a custom
trucker hat with a lighthouse shooting rainbows hand drawn upon it
labeled "Queer Beacon." Know that in all instances in which I use the
word "gay" or "homo" it is with nothing but love for the community who
has motorboated me the most.
Last week, between new nerd responsibilities at work, watching old Sisqo videos, and potting the new pineapple plant, I barely had any time to tackle Martha Stewart again in what I had promised would be a weekly feature. But today, I got back into it. The results of this hot curmudgeonly WASP on WASP action follow...
(From Martha Stewart's Top 50 Money Saving Tips, 22 Decorating on a budget, 19 Don't Toss Those Leftovers, 16 Repurposed Furniture and Decor, and 27 Recycled Crafts.)
Clothing swap or drag estate sale? Either way, it's basically all of my dreams come true. And I hope y'all know you need to come correct and alert me if you're getting rid of anything with sequins, nucka.
Microfiber cloths? Where have I seen those before? Write your own rhymes, bitch, before it gets to a Lil Kim/Nicki Minaj level beef. Still, obviously, I cosign on this. I do think you need to come up with a storage solution for dirty cloths if they're going to be a practical option, and you need to have enough of them on hand so that you can use a fresh one every time. The ones I just bought recommend laundering them in a mesh garment bag, so I'm thinking that you could have a separate garbage can (or a five gallon bucket?) just for them, with a mesh garment bag in it, and that way you're not mixing them in with your daily laundry. I'd say you maybe need like 20 of them? But an 8 pack of paper towels is $15.79, so I think you'd start saving money within a month or two. A case of 12 is $40 at the Brooklyn Home Depot, OR on Amazon, you can get a 36 pack of Zwipes for $22.75 AND yes, it's eligible for Super Saver shipping.
I mean, to be real, my ass is just going to use newspaper, probably, and that's if I even manage to get my act together enough to buy you a real present that isn't a bottle of Svedka at all. But Martha's gay ass ideas about using birch bark, old timey maps, and sweaters (apparently, sweater repurposing is not limited to just Grey Gardens headwraps anymore) are kind of tight.
Apparently, you can turn a cast iron skillet over and use it as a pizza stone and cast iron skillets last "at least 50 years." They also add iron to your diet. And let's be real, I'll buy anything that involves rubbing oil all over something. Even if that something is a questionable craigslist home massage.
Wines often cost more when they come from a well-known wine-making region or are made from a popular grape. So rather than heading straight for a familiar bottle, try something different: Instead of Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, or Merlot, try Albarino, Malbec, or Sangiovese. Chile, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa are newer wine-producing countries that make good-quality bargain wines. You can also ask the store manager about any specials. If a store gets a deal from the distributor, the savings may be passed on to you."
Okay, but aren't we all just buying cheap wine from Trader Joe's anyway, unless we haven't thought ahead and are forced to go to the bougie store twice in one day post drunk brunch with Kelly?
Last time I checked, candle purchases weren't exactly devouring my paychecks, unless I'm back at the Yankee Candle land of dreams, but I'll bite- you use the leftover ends of candles and old teacups to make new candles. Or, you could do what I do and just put your old candle on the radiator. Done! And all without the use of a double boiler or having to steal from foppish dandies.
I guess- I GUESS- you could do this if you're mad dumb. Or if you need a use for your once ironic name buckle purchased in Chinatown sitting unused in your closet next to a trucker hat. 2003 was a weird time.
Freeze wine, lemon juice, tomato paste, herbs, extra stock to add "oomph" to weeknight meals? In ice cube trays? I learned this in a mom magazine years ago, thank you very much. Why you all up on Better Homes and Garden's nuts?
Run used wrapping paper and the like through a paper shredder for packing paper. But seriously, who sends this many gifts? I can barely feed and clothe myself, let alone remember a birthday, purchase a gift, and send it to someone in fanciful repurposed packaging. Maybe I need to try initiating a Xanax-for-Adderall swapsies with more motivated friends.
Here's another sort of whack, but workable one- make dressing using the leftover bit of mustard in the jar, right in the jar. I mean- yeah, it works I guess, and it encourages you to reuse a jar. I just wish Martha had an answer for how I could start having disposable income.
Again, to be real, we're all just lucky if there's a clean towel in my bathroom, period. But if I ever start to care about having matching towels in the bathroom, this ribbon-as-unifier concept works.
Fuck. You got me. If there's anything white people and novelty tee-shirt enthusiasts love, it's trompe l'oeil. Just ask my little brother who has to pretend he likes the tuxedo tee-shirt I bought him for Christmas.
Mel and I bought one of those lid holders that attaches to the wall from Ikea to hold magazines, but they get all floppy, and no one likes it when it's floppy. Mail might be a better choice for it.
I use a vintage suitcase for the same purpose. Was that a douchey and pretentious sounding thing to say? Of course. I went to NYU. One of my best friends' boyfriends has a Proust tattoo, in French, on his arm. We're all The Worst. But at least you can chalk it up to our crippling insecurities and paralyzing awkwardness.
*Note: this comes from someone who, at
one point, had probably kissed more gay men than straight men and
received for her 18th birthday ironically held at Hooters a custom
trucker hat with a lighthouse shooting rainbows hand drawn upon it
labeled "Queer Beacon." Know that in all instances in which I use the
word "gay" or "homo" it is with nothing but love for the community who
has motorboated me the most.
I initially wrote that this would be a Weekly Segment, followed up by some mentions of juice-box wine and maudlin reflections on love lost. But I feel pretty good today, since one of my co-workers sent me the following email detailing how he was partially responsible for one of the Best Places On Earth: the Yankee Candle SCENTER (puns!) OF THE UNIVERSE compound in Western Massachusetts.
(I know you would never do this, but DON'T sleep on that recreation of a quaint Bavarian village, or you will be So Blown when actual fake falling snow comes down to picturesquely fuck up your steeze. Guys, the actual Von Trapp Great-Grandchildren performed there! I am absolutely losing my shit right now that I missed this.) To all my n-words in lockdown in the 860/413 aka Hot 93.7 listening area- get ready to read a description of your wildest dreams come true:
"Ok, you are going to love this. Answer yes I have… but there is more.. back in 1993-1995 I was doing network installations (running fiber cables, data cables, installing the servers etc. etc.) Yankee Candle was one of our biggest clients, so I was actually the one who wired that entire bavarian village.. there are crawl tunnels and spaces all throughout that place and since I was smaller and I guess agile.. I was the one that had to pull the cables through all the back areas, tunnels etc. etc. and then hook them up to punch down blocks and servers.. it was actually pretty cool.. we worked 6pm – 6am. Also installed all the network stuff for their factory, nothing like standing on a lift 30 feet in the air over a vat of melted scented wax to get a little dizzy…"
Did your mind also just flashback to this time in your life when your mother hadn't patched up your fall foliage pants in such a way that now they give you a cameltoe if you try to wear them but you still wear them anyway because how could you ever stop wearing the most sexually arousing pants of all time?
The next thing you're going to tell me is that one of the dudes in the sausagefest nerdery I work in invented the Friendly's Cone Head sundae and hand carved the Old Sturbridge Village old timey picture that you can stick your head in.
Because this is what normal people do after weddings. They go to historical recreation destinations where ginger cookies abound, spend a lot of time ascertaining the exact process through which old-timey people used sage leaves to dye homespun yarn, and take pictures in which Jessi is literally the greatest little boy of all time.
The point is, I'm rejuvenated to the point that I can say hey, Donut, tonight, we're drinking sparkling water and eating healthfully, because the world isn't such a terrible place after all when you're reminded about how you can go nutmeg deep pretty much whenever you want into a world of Foliage and Fun, and that your friend's second annual 29th birthday party is being held at a roller skating rink in Middletown where this time, your Mean Dad won't make you wear a helmet and the other fifth graders will not mock you as "Gangster's Paradise" plays, at a time in your life when you couldn't actually relate to the lyrics of the song and you'd never knocked a chair over in anger while wearing a leather jacket.
So it's Martha Stewart Time!!!!!! Today, we will be tackling organization systems- all 100 of them, and more.
If every hole you drill into your apartment means another spackle job you'll have to do as you hastily shove your belongings into force flex garbage bags and get in tense fights with your roommate about "just wanting to know if she wanted you to bring her package of tofu in the refrigerator items bag," you might want to think about using peg board, so you can move hooks and the like around as your storage needs change, without creating more holes. Plus, pegboard is dad garage chic!
Face it, you're living a lie. You are never going to sew the buttons back onto that coat that your heaving bosom caused to pop off. But maybe, your mom will shame you into letting her fix it, because your hobo-like appearance brings embarrassment to your entire family.
Okay, Martha, I'll bite. In the past, I've stuck an array of jewelries up on the wall via hooks or thumbtacks, which again leads to the problem of Holes That Need To Be Plugged Up, and I'm not just talking about ladies who you *think* could have the "fun fucked into them" by you. You can probably make your own hoodrat version of this by affixing a shoe box to a canvas. Then when people come over, they will say, "my, what a nice shoe box affixed to a canvas," and when you go to the kitchen to check on the roast, they will laugh at you and your tacky attempts at DIY.
Sure, this looks awesome. Unfortunately, even though Martha thinks you will find an awesome one just hanging out at a flea market or yard sale, all you will be able to scrounge up is a gross metal one you find, like the rest of your furniture, on the street. Hey, at least bed bugs don't live in metal!
Goodness, you're not making that! You just had a panic attack because you started thinking about how you'd manage to even sweep the floor before your parents come to visit tomorrow, and half of your apartment is still in boxes when you moved in two months ago. The best you can hope for is that one of your bougier friends shows up to your housewarming party with wine in one of those classy cloth bags, instead of a 40 in black plastic that they've already drunk half of.
You definitely need this. You probably have mice. Actually, you definitely have mice. And they're gnawing through the plastic lid to that can of powdered milk you bought to make hot chocolate mix as we speak.
Maybe your new apartment only has three outlets and they are all in out of the way places, like above the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. You will have a lot of extension cords draped all over the place, and you could use this to curl them up? But a better idea would be to put it around your dick, and have a lightsaber fight with another dude, and I will film it.
If you don't want the mice getting to your shit, you better put it on lockdown in a bench with a lid that is too heavy for their tiny hands to lift up. Plus, remember that one time Michelle and Sara came to your apartment and a chair broke underneath you while you were eating bodega ice cream? And how you didn't buy a replacement chair? Where the fuck are people supposed to sit? Go buy a goddam bench. Your floor is way too dirty for guests to sit on.
You will try to make this yourself using paint and ribbon, and it will look shitty. Try it as a conversation piece in your office! Oh, you don't have one? Haha. You're poor, aren't you? Now no one will ever have sex with you unless they're trying to live out some kind of stable boy fantasy.
They have a bunch of this stuff at Ikea. Eat some reasonably priced macaroni and cheese in their cafeteria and hey, you'll get through it. There's cinnamon buns at the end, you know.
Guys, put those toilet paper rolls in a vase because that plastic bag is not cutting it and anyway, you got it for free since it was the centerpiece at your friend's wedding that you maybe took too much advantage of the open bar at and ended up throwing up in the bridal suite bathroom before going back for more and falling asleep at the table. Hey, teaching is really hard.
Because it's really not polite to hand the towel you use to dry your dog off to your roommate's boyfriend and tell him it's the "guest towel," use the vertical space in your bathroom to store extra towels, toothbrushes, and bulk goods.
For once in my life, I actually have a bathroom large enough to accommodate a chair in it, and I think I'm going to go with it. But what I will probably do is just throw a bathrobe over a chair and call it a day.
Okay, so now that I've taken myself through 25 bedroom organizers, 25 kitchen organizers, 25 closet, storage, and office organizers, and 25 bathroom organizers, plus answered a boss' question, "Oh, you went to NYU?" with "Yeah. It's where I learned to be an administrative assistant." I'm both bouge and snarked out. Come back next week when I return to the blog equivalent of calling an ex-boyfriend for sex. (And no, well meaning friends, I haven't done that in like a whole month, okay, so you don't need to be worried. 2011, y'all!)
*Note: this comes from someone who, at one point, had probably kissed more gay men than straight men and received for her 18th birthday ironically held at Hooters a custom trucker hat with a lighthouse shooting rainbows hand drawn upon it labeled "Queer Beacon." Know that in all instances in which I use the word "gay" or "homo" it is with nothing but love for the community who has motorboated me the most. Starting today, I'm thinking that once a week, I will go to the Martha Stewart website, look through the photo galleries for good ideas, and stop once I realize I don't have any Xanax in my purse today and would shortly need it. These aren't necessarily the cutest projects, but they are the ones that are
a. most applicable to an apartment dwelling life (decorating without painting, fitting a lot in a small space [hi-yo!], storage without making excessive holes in the wall)
b. include repurposing or other environmentally friendly gestures
c. can help you gussy up the shitty, make do situations we all live in because we can't afford to buy real furniture or art yet, and if you can, don't tell me that, because I don't need another reason to cry alone in my bedroom while watching a Netflix documentary about what could cause the end of our civilization that features the same scientist from Guns, Germs, and Steel, which also makes you sad because Remember When You Watched That With Someone You Loved and Who Even Knows What Love Is Anymore, Pass The Juice Box Of Wine, Donut. Collapse! Watch it instantly!And decorate while drinking that wine juice box because these are the best days of your life, young person!
Unfortunately, this one is For Lesbians Only (FLO). If you're trying to get pounded out, you need some bare wall space for leverage or that quilt and rod (wanky wanky) are definitely getting pulled down in the midst of boning.
Who the fuck knew that shit was called a "finial?" Probably Michelle. But she is a graduate student, and we all know Graduate Students Are The Worst. I also think you could use not a pinecone for this. Ready to get edgy again? Try a bundle of cigarettes loosely tied with gold rope and finished with at tassel. Look at you juxtaposing! You're so contemporary!
Okay, the anxiety moment has come. I just saw a link below the one I was looking at for "100 Easy Organizers." Clearly, I went in over my head when I thought I could browse pillows, frames and mirrors, bedding, lighting, and bedroom organization in one day. I think next week I will tackle my results from taking on the organization section.
As someone who is almost as greazy and raw as Big Baby Jesus, one of the things I've been trying to work on of late is cleaning. We all know the troubles with eco-friendly cleaners- so many of them are painfully ineffective and so unnervingly hippie scented that it's tempting to give up on them entirely. One of the problems I've determined is that, perhaps at least with Americans, we're so used to the convenience of super strong cleaning products that we're not accustomed to cleaning preventively or in my case, even regularly. (I mean, I'd assumed, from growing up with a chocolate lab that B FLAN apparently stayed judging,
Or is he grilling his oldest sister's fresh homemade M.C. Escher joint?
that by having a dog I'd pretty much never have to clean the floor. WRONG. Donut instead artfully trails both crumbs and occasionally urine through multiple rooms, sometimes pausing to almost throw up on a jumpoff. I'M GETTING SO LAID.) But did you just ask me for an old timey farmer's almanac quote to clarify this point? Just ask this unsettling gif of Ben Franklin! (Is that a gif? I'm new to being a robotic scientist.) An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So here are some things I've encountered in my slovenly journey through life since the last time I posted about cleaning that could potentially help you, if by some chance you are less tidy than me which is virtually impossible.
1) Mesh sink and shower traps.
You're probably doing this already. But if you live in a hobo fort, as I often have, you know that the plumbing is often old and busted, and generally prone to clogging. There's the whole eco-friendly trick of putting a half cup of baking soda (perhaps scented with essential oils if you're a big fruitcake), adding vinegar, and making a bathroom 3rd grade science experiment volcano, followed by a tea kettle of boiling water. That's just fine for a bit of scum or whatever, and it will help with odors as well, but it's not going to eat through six months of hair. I've had to resort to Draino a couple of times in the past few years, and my environmental conscience is definitely out of sorts over it. Some apartments, like my last one, have the kind of drain covering that is screwed down and covered in large-ish holes, which makes it difficult to put a more effective mesh trap over it. (I'm not inclined to think the other one traps much hair, which seems to be the biggest source of clogs.) I think you could probably just unscrew it and put a mesh trap in, though.
One place to not forget is the bathroom sink. It didn't occur to me, but somehow we have managed to clog the bathroom sink, and I don't just think it was our ill advised idea to fill it with decorative river rocks that ended up getting really slimy and gross (kind of like...actual river rocks). And no, I wax my mustache, and Melissa doesn't let Q-Tip shave at our apartment, so it's not that. It's probably from blow-drying and hair straightening, I'm guessing. Anyway, make sure you put one there too. Right now I had to awkwardly put one upside down on it since there's that stopper thing in it which appears to be broken and won't come out, but I think I'll need to find a more permanent solution.
Admittedly, in both the kitchen and bathroom, cleaning the mesh things is gross, but I think it's necessary. I'd also do the volcano thing as often as you remember to do it.
2) Swiffer vacuum.
Sometimes, appliance store employees will tell you that such a thing "does not exist." However, former all-star CVS employee Tiny Balls will tell you that it does, and it's pretty wonderful. Could you buy a real vacuum for your floors? Yeah, probably. But seeing as I probably can't even afford the toy Dyson that Catie's adorable niece rocks,
Nascent feminism! She chose that vacuum, okay PC police?
this is what I'm up to for now. Plus, it works via charging it, so in addition to being extremely light you get more mobility.
I think, technically, if you look through a lot of environmental blogs, Swiffers are kind of the worst, but you can modify them so they serve multiple purposes and don't require you to keep purchasing those pads or Wet Jet solutions. It seems like a lot of people are taking an old dish towel, cutting it to size, and attaching it to the Swiffer, but you can also buy a pack of microfiber cleaning cloths and use those, for both wet and dry cleaning. Let me tell you something- people are all up on microfiber's nuts on the internet. There's some Austrian brand called "Enjo" that is apparently a cult classic in other countries (although I think it's also something vulgar in Japanese, so be careful when you google it...), but it seems like standard microfiber cleaning cloths are getting the job done for a lot of people out there (the ones I found on Amazon had excellent reviews, and someone mentioned that you could also get them at Lowe's.)
I guess the deal with microfiber is that since the threads are so fine, they're able to trap a considerable amount of dirt/grime, abetted by static electricity when dry, and water when wet. They also don't generally require you to use any cleaning product with them besides water, so they save money and packaging waste. I imagine for weird grime spots on the floor, you'd probably want to use the old baking soda-castille soap scrub, or if you want to go commercial, Melissa picked up Method's Le Scrub, which I've also been using on tough pots and pans (and would probably also do well in the shower). The scent is decent, too, as this kind of thing goes. And you could probably wet the microfiber using vinegar too, for extra clean/shine/easter egg dying scent.
One thing I like about the Swiffer vacuum is that you really can use it to both vacuum and wet-clean (just don't turn the vacuum on). Since Donut stays shedding all over the place, our old apartment used to contain giant caramel-colored tumbleweeds just lurking, waiting to fuck up your black outfits, but now that I have the vacuum, the hair problem is much less serious. I'm still covered in dog hair (although I have had some success by changing out of my work clothes before I pick him up to pet him), but that's the price you pay for having a Young Explorer in your life.
Why is he so much happier as Dog Kylie Minogue? My dog is a faggot.
3) Pretending to be somewhat eco-friendly with your lazy cleaning compromises: using cost as a motivator to properly take care of your clothing.
The weekend before last, instead of spending all of Saturday doing my own laundry, I dropped 46 pounds of it off at the laundromat before going to brunch at Buttermilk Channel with Melissa and Kelly. In my defense, the only one near me is the tiniest laundromat of all time (I'm going to say just wider than a subway car, and that's including the machines, so the actual space to walk through is even worse), there are no seats, and other laundry patrons referred to it as "Tetris"and were trying to give me tips on which machines actually dried the clothing. I also had that volume of laundry because I was washing linens and stuff from the move, so theoretically, this won't be a regular expense.
Also, have you ever had a bloody mary with a fucking oyster for a garnish? Or pecan pie French toast? I mean, come on.
Try to have a best friend who is a vegetarian so she will let you eat the oyster when you 60/40 your brunch beverages. What, you don't do that and just have your own individual drink? Lame-alert! How are you supposed to have both sweet AND savory alcohol, buy two drinks per person? It's a recession, guys, ever heard of it?
Oysters are so sustainable and non-sentient that even vegetarians are starting to get on board with them. And not just the ones who lie about being a vegetarian because they think it makes them seem cute but really they're just annoying as fuck. (I mean, don't get me wrong, I support being a vegetarian, and I live with one, but you know the type I'm talking about. Ugh, but the worst is people who pretend to be vegans but aren't. Why are you the worst? Eating weird vegan cookies does not make you superior, nephew. There's no need to lie about it. That's not to say, again, that eating weird vegan cookies makes you that kind of person. You can eat a cookie without being the worst. Or, to put my criticism of vegetarian/veganism misused as status marker, like the author of the above mentioned oyster article writes, "Eating ethically is not a purity pissing contest, and the more vegans or vegetarians pretend that it is, the more their diets start to resemble mere fashion—and thus risk being dismissed as such. Emerson wrote, 'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.' Or maybe I just wanted to include another adage in this post. Who knows.)
What I think is key here, at the nexus of lazy bouge and ecological mindfulness, are two things. First, you can use the extra cost as a motivator to dry fewer items. For me, the annoying thing about doing laundry in that kind of seatless-setting is the whole change-over process. The machines are often tricksters about how much time they really have left, and if you have to wait you're often left watching back to back episodes of new Mowry sister-related programming on BET. But if you're just washing clothes (on cold, theoretically), you can come back for them post-brunch and hence are not subjected to Tia, Tamara, or....Roger!
The second is that if you take proper care of your clothes, you can wash them less (and they'll also last longer). So hey, go ahead, and put on those home pants with an elastic waistband when you get home from work.
The Comfort Zone
I really liked a lot of the tips on this I found here, especially dressing for the task at hand and wearing traditional underclothes. Slips, guys! Slips! They're not just outwear! I consulted the internet to learn more about this phenomenon, and it turns out that they can be pretty handy in terms of not making your skirt ride up, making it lie properly (or lay, shit, middle school grammar, why have I forgotten you? You "lay" something down right? But the skirt "lies" on its own, sans direct object? EVERYTHINGISTHEWORST) so that it doesn't wrinkle or cling, and protecting your clothing from how gross you are. I have to admit, I have had some serious Seventeen magazine moments involving vintage dresses made of synthetic fabric weirdly riding up when I am carrying a larger tote bag, and I didn't even realize that slips could help arrest this phenomenon.
This does mean, however, that you probably shouldn't freeball as much as you do, like right now, as you read this and your nuts are delicately teabagging your Businessman Pants in your office chair. BLOWN. However, are you wearing opaque tights? Sheer tights? Freeball away! The word "panty" is right there in the word "pantyhose." There's no need to doublebag it. Or, to judge This Guy for never wearing underwear with my tights. Except for when your friend posts on your facebook, "Heather. Got our wedding video. Your cooter almost makes an appearance." Maybe if it's a filmed occasion you should wear underwear just in case, but only if you tend to get unruly on the dance floor. Next time, I'm wearing my dick shorts.
Additionally, you should wash your bras/underwear in lingerie bags- it's not just for use because you're embarrassed that that old lady will be mumbling about your underwear to her co-workers in Chinese. Apparently, it keeps the straps from wrapping around each other. You should fasten the clasp so that it doesn't catch on sweaters and the like. H&M's website also suggests that you "wash nylon tights and delicate garments with details in a laundry bag." If you didn't several years ago become too fat for the jeans you owned and decided that you wouldn't buy another pair until you were thin enough to fit and consequently haven't owned jeans since 2008, and you often sport some Wranglers or Chics, you should also zip them up, since the teeth can damage clothing as well. I've been wondering for a long time if you should turn your clothes inside out or not to get them cleaner- according to this website:
"Some of the wear and tear that happens on your clothing can be prevented by turning your clothing inside out before washing and drying. Washing and drying clothing is rough on the outside of your clothing. Turning garments inside out will reduce pilling which dulls the look of the fabric. Don't forget to turn clothing inside out when you hang clothes outside to dry. While the sun is an excellent and efficient drying tool, it will zap the color right out of your clothing."
The washing instructions for your garment sometimes contain extra information on caring for the item. Here are a few more tips on caring for certain materials and garments.
Details
Take off removable details and do up Velcro and zip fastenings before washing. Wash nylon tights and delicate garments with details in a laundry bag.
Chunky-knits
Chunky-knits should be reshaped and dried flat to maintain the original shape, which is why these garments are additionally labelled “Dry flat”.
Linen
Linen is a natural material and can easily get misshapen when wet. To restore the garment to its original shape, iron it with a hot steam iron. To keep its sheen, iron the garment on the reverse side.
Viscose
Viscose is a natural material and can easily get misshapen when wet. To restore the garment easily to its original shape, iron it with a steam iron.
Silk
Silk is a very delicate material and should be treated with care. Use a detergent for delicates when washing silk and do not stretch the garment while wet.
Wool
Often, airing woollen garments is enough. Use a detergent for delicates when you do wash them. Use the wool or hand wash cycle on your washing machine or wash by hand. Iron after washing to restore the natural sheen.
Denim
Wash jeans inside out to stop them fading. Remove them from the washing machine as soon as possible after the programme has ended to avoid creasing. Denim’s characteristic appearance is the result of a special dyeing method. As a result, small pigment particles may remain on the surface and can rub off.
Leather
Leather and suede items should be taken to a specialist leather dry cleaner.
Down jackets
Place tennis balls in the tumble dryer when drying down garments to distribute the down evenly. The down must be dried completely.
Rainwear
Rainwear should drip-dry. If you dry them in a drying cabinet, do so at a low temperature.
H&M works actively on environmental matters related to production and transport in order to limit our environmental impact. The greatest share of energy consumption, however, occurs when you wash your clothes.
Energy consumption during the lifetime of a T-shirt from washing, tumble drying and ironing
Energy distribution during the lifetime of a cotton T-shirt. The “use” phase covers: washing 25 times at 60°, with tumble drying and ironing. (Source: “Well dressed?” By: University of Cambridge Institute for Manufacturing)
Don’t wash clothes unnecessarily
Don’t wash clothes that are not dirty. Often, airing and brushing clothes is enough.
Lower the washing temperature
H&M always labels its garments with the highest permitted temperature. But you can select a lower washing temperature to save energy. Most detergents wash just as well at lower temperatures. A cold wash uses around half as much energy as a warm wash. H&M recommends that heavily soiled clothes and underwear are always washed at the highest temperature allowed. But do not wash your garments at hotter temperatures than stated in the washing instructions.
Fill your washing machine
Sort the clothes by colour and washing temperature. Fill up your washing machine, but don’t stuff too much in. A washing machine is full when you can place a clenched fist on top of the washing without compressing the clothes. Use an energy saving programme – most modern washing machines have one.
Choose a “green” detergent
Use an environmentally friendly detergent that is free from optical whiteners and phosphates, since these have a negative environmental impact when released into nature. Dose the detergent as stated on the packaging. Overdosing detergent will not make your clothes cleaner. To get the dose right, you need to know whether you have hard or soft water.
Avoid fabric conditioners, although H&M recommends that acrylic garments are washed with fabric conditioner to counter static electricity in the garment after washing.
Avoid dry cleaning
Dry cleaning is a process in which the clothes are cleaned using an organic solvent. Dry cleaning has a negative environmental impact when the solvent is released into nature. A small proportion of H&M’s garments are dry clean only, because they contain details or materials than could change colour or become misshapen by washing at home. Today, there are also greener methods of dry cleaning that clean the clothes using only water and carbon dioxide reclaimed from industry. This type of dry cleaning therefore does not release chemicals.
Leave your washing out to dry
It is preferable to leave your washing out to dry since tumble drying and drying cabinets use a lot of energy. To reduce drying time, spin the clothes well before taking them out of the washing machine.
Give away your clothes!
When you no longer have a use for clothes, give them to an organisation that can extend the garment’s life."
I also gave the laundromat my own detergent (I think right now it's Biokleen detergent and Ecover softener). But I think when those two run out I'll start making my own detergent and softener. I still have to admit I haven't made my own detergent or powder yet, but I do have Big Dreams of not being the worst, so here is the plan:
Washing:
1) Detergent- I've looked through all the recipes, and if you don't want to go to the trouble of grating up a bar of soap, this one is the way to go. In terms of liquid castile soaps, the excessive sayings on the bottles of Dr. Bronner's make me murderously angry for some reason (because I don't care for a soap telling me how to live my life) and the Whole Foods kind was recently on sale for the same price, so I bought the almond kind. If you do go for the Dr. Bronner's, I don't know what it is, but some of the scents start to smell really crazy to me after awhile, except for the almond, so I recommend that.
"Recipe #10 – (Powdered) 1 cup Vinegar (white)
1 cup Baking Soda
1 cup Washing Soda
1/4 cup liquid castile soap
Mix well and store in sealed container.
I find it easiest to pour the liquid soap into the bowl first, stirred in the washing soda, then baking soda, then added the vinegar in small batches at a time (the recipe foams up at first). The mixture is a thick paste at first that will break down into a heavy powdered detergent, just keep stirring. There may be some hard lumps, try to break them down when stirring (it really helps to make sure the baking soda isn’t clumpy when first adding). I used 1/2 cup per full load with great results."
There are other recipes that involve grating a bar of soap, which probably also work well, and many of them use the old timey soap Fels-Naptha as a base. Your grandpa loves it! It's literally over a hundred years old. It apparently also can get rid of aphids on your plants, draw out splinters, and soothe poison ivy. But is it environmentally friendly? According to Lance Armstrong,
"Uses
Fels-Naptha contains solvents that dissolves greasy stains, including oil and grease, perspiration, chocolate, baby formula and cosmetics. The wet bar is rubbed into stains before putting clothes into the washing machine. You can also grate about one-third of an ounce of the bar into the washing machine as a detergent booster. It has been used as a folk remedy for contact dermatitis caused by exposure to poison ivy, poison oak and other skin irritants. However, the Dial company warns that Fels-Naptha should not be used directly on your skin.
Ingredients
Fels-Naptha contains soap consisting of sodium tallowate and sodium cocoate or sodium palmate kernelate and sodium palmate. The word "sodium" refers to sodium hydroxide, the lye used to make soap, in this case with tallow, coconut oil, palm oil or palm kernel oil. It also contains water and talc. Coconut acid, palm acid and tallow acid are fatty acids derived from plants and animals. They are emollients and surfactants, cleaning agents in other words. PEG-6 methyl ether is an extract of juniper. Fels-Naptha also contains glycerin, an emollient; sorbitol, a sugar alcohol derived from fruits, corn and seaweed, a moisturizer; and sodium chloride, ordinary table salt. Pentasodium pentetate and/or tetrasodium etidronate are inorganic salts used as emulsifiers and dispersing agents. Titatium dioxide is an opaque white pigment. The soap also contains fragrance, source not specified and acid orange and acid yellow colors.
Considerations
Some of the ingredients in Fels-Naptha are of concern, such as titanium dioxide, which is known to contaminate the ocean and lakes and harm wildlife. According to Material Safety Data Sheets, Fels-Naptha is safe for consumer use in the laundry. The MSDS does give warnings about occupational hazards, and those who work with Fels-Naptha soap in industrial settings are required to wear safety gear including goggles and gloves, because it is an irritant.
What is Naphtha?
Naphtha is the name for a petroleum derived solvent, and includes such solvents as gasoline and kerosene. Originally Fels-Naptha contained benzene, another name for naphtha, which dissolves oil and so is very useful for oily stains. This ingredient is what made Fels-Naptha such a success, making it possible for homemakers to get their laundry cleaner with less effort. However, Fels-Naptha no longer contains benzene."
According to the Good Guide, it's not that bad (unless you're doing greywater, but if you are, you're probably environmentally advanced beyond this blog). And it seems waaaaay more effective than some Dr. Bronner bullshit. So I'd say it's definitely nowhere near as bad as the effective but ecologically irresponsible mascara I'm wearing, but not as environmentally friendly as other methods. (There's a good tutorial here if you want to try.)
2) Booster- 1/2 cup baking soda per load. Add it with your detergent or (and this is important since I once may have kind of gotten baking soda all over Melissa and Jessi's washing machine) to the water before adding clothes if you have a top loading machine. (Bronwen once sent me this post from apartment therapy that I blogged about earlier on how to scent the baking soda using fresh herbs, which I plan to try...)
"Just adding a ¼ to ½ cup of white vinegar to the rinse cycle should give you nice results – and no, your laundry won’t come out smelling like vinegar!
Or you can make this:
1 cup baking soda
6 cups distilled white vinegar
8 cups water
5-10 drops essential oils (Optional - I like Lavender Essential Oil )
Bucket for mixing
Reuse old fabric softener or detergent container (clean)
Mix baking soda and one cup of the water in bucket. Slowly add in the vinegar and when it stops fizzing, add the rest of the water. If you want a fragrance, use your favorite essential oil adding 5 to 10 drops (start with less, you can always add more later). Pour mixture into container, put on top and remember to shake before using. ½ to 1 cup added to the beginning of the rinse cycle should work well.
If you are one of those people who often forget to add softener to the rinse cycle, you can make your own dryer sheet by putting just a little bit of your homemade fabric softener on an old washcloth or clean rag, and toss it in the dryer. Just dampen the cloth with a little - you don’t want it dripping on to your clothes."
You can also, apparently, reduce static cling by sticking a 2-3" ball of aluminum in the dryer.
And meanwhile, I'll continue to dream of a day when I have a way to do laundry that is closer to my apartment than two and a half blocks away...#whitewhine
I think, for now, these are all the cleaning updates I have- drain traps, Swiffer vacuum+microfiber, laundry drop-off+eco-friendly detergent. Haha, it looks like you didn't have to read this whole long entry. Ya burnt, as it were.
1 cup Vinegar (white)