Laundry stripping tutorial

Wondering how to strip your laundry? Watch this. The very gross yet supremely satisfying way of ridding your clothes, towels and sheets of all the built up grime your washing machine and detergent leaves behind!

[dwderp]

I am certainly no expert, but I'm going to take a crack at guessing what's going on here. I think what's coming out of the laundry is not just dirt, but rather years of built-up fabric softener. What most people don't realize is that fabric softeners don't soften fabric. Instead, what they do is coat the fabric with oily, waxy chemicals which make the fabric feel soft to the touch. It stands to reason that if your clothing is coated with waxy chemicals, that it will attract and hold dirt. And when you break down the chemicals with this process, it releases the dirt. By the way, your body is in almost total contact with these chemicals 24/7. It's not good for you.

[susie]

My tricks for laundry -

1. Never stuff the washer full. The clothes need space to agitate. Clothes get clean more from agitation (think washboard).

2. Use a third of liquid detergent than you think you need.

3. Fill the fabric softer compartment with vinegar and add a good splash into the washer as it’s filling.

4. Use room temp. water. Not cold. I generally fill it up about 1/3 hot and then switch it to cold. (I have an older machine.)

5. Air dry clothes whenever possible. Smaller loads are easier to space around the laundry room until you get a line up. Amazon sells retractable clothes lines. I have three about the machines.

[inchristalone]

Our shower door leaks every time we shower and nobody has been able to fix it. Therefore, we dedicated a bunch of towels as our “floor” towels. I stripped them and the water didn’t even change colors. I realized we don’t use fabric softener or any other harsh agents to wash. I have sensitive skin so we use a free and clear liquid detergent. This lets me know we’ve been doing the right thing.

[ellam]

Dish soap gets mascara and makeup/foundation off clothes/fabrics if you clean it off before you wash and dry the garment in a dryer. I ruined so many clothes with drops or splatter of foundation while doing my makeup before I tested dish soap and it worked!

[spideys]

Did this to my white bed sheets… it looked like chicken noodle soup. So much cleaner now thank you!

[rhonayounan]

I have a top loader washing machine that I can stop at any time. I think it would be much easier to fill the washing machine with the clothes and then when the machine is done adding the water I can open it up, add the chemicals and then let it sit like that for 4 hours. Manhandling wet towels in a bathtub is back breaking.

[acmulhern]

To avoid this just stop using fabric softener. It's waxy and sticks to clothes and over time dirt sticks to it and doesn't wash out.
There is literally no reason to use fabric softener other than giving you clothes a smell, so you're better off just putting perfume on your laundry instead...

[elizabethhealing]

I use less laundry soap, no fabric softener in washing machine nor the balls fluff everything nicely....
we overuse soap in this country, hence the need to laundry

[kgaletin]

I think that a key lesson from your experiment is that people put WAY too much detergent in their machines. I only ever use a 1/4 the amount recommended unless I have super soiled clothes which does not happen that often. I also use 1/4 cup of white vinegar in the rinse cycle. I think it helps to eliminate any soap residue. Finally, I hang dry or if I use my dryer, I use wool dryer balls. i am convinced that dryer sheets leave a film on clothes that is not needed. Looks like your kids enjoyed your experiment.

[birdgirl]

I think I had this video recommended randomly some weeks ago. It got me intrigued and by now I have fully switched to soda, citric acid and vinegar to clean my stuff. I'm so angry at how amazing it works, because of the thousands of € I've literally washed down the drain with expensive cleaning products that never worked.

[juliestam]

If you add half a cup of baking soda diluted in warm water and added to your washing at the beginning of the cycle it has the same effect over time. Also use a half a cup of vinegar instead of fabric softener and you won't have problems with build up of gunk. This is for a top loader, use less in a front loader.

* Edit: changed amount of vinegar needed/top/front loader

[kathryncooper]

I tried it, but ended up with perfectly clear water -- rather sudsy, but not dirty. I make my own laundry soap, and two of the three ingredients are borax and A&H Super Washing Soda. No fabric softener, only dryer balls. I also tried cleaning my 40-year-old Maytag with Oxy Clean and citric acid, because I was led to believe it was probably caked with soap scum on the outside of the drum; no soap scum, dirt, or mold floating on the water at the end of the process. I have concluded that the borax and/or washing soda in my DIY laundry soap tend to release the residual dirt, oils & soap from the fabrics. If you're using a commercial detergent and fabric softener, I don't think you're going to get everything completely clean with standard wash practices.

[damiettes]

How did you wash your clothes before? On cold? American laundry machines are trash. In Europe they only have cold water that the machine takes in and warms up itself to whatever temp you set it. You need to wash at least at 60 degrees celcius and for over an hour to kill all the germs.
Looks like the soap lobby has influenced the laundry protocol in the US.

[LS-mcrv]

I seriously think that the old wringer washers got clothes way cleaner than washers today.

[KeikoBushnell]

I noticed this one time it made my whites really white but I put vinegar in my sink with water and all my dingy whites and they got super bright I wasn’t expecting it I was just trying to do my wash because my washer broke. I added baking soda to at one point but I think it was just a vinegar itself that made it way before I added the baking soda

[shirley.temple]

Best tutorial and straight to the point ! Thank you ! 🥰

[bobgilbert]

What did we learn class? I've done this a few times, it works ok. Towels, jeans and heavy items are the worst. Skip sheets and pillowcases they don't hold onto much "soap film" at all. You will feel like a maid in a Tolstoy novel schlepping your wet laundry around...heavy work. I think we all should: 1) use the SOAK feature on our wash machines more to laundry strip before washing 2) use WAY less soap ( consumer reports 1 oz rec. avg load ) 3) skip the fab softener and dryer sheets... they add a lot to the soap film on your clothes. ( add a little A&H wash soda and/or Borax to help wash clothes.)

[nancybreaux]

It might be dye as well coming off your clothes.

[Maeghan]

Amazing results! If you have a top load washing machine, skip the bath tub (and a ton of work wringing everything out) and do it in the washing machine.

[calvin]

I loved the days when I could fill my top loading washer with boiling water, a little bleach, stir it up and add dark dingy whites. Loved the clean it gave. Front load washers, as well as the fabric softeners and detergents add to the general grime and dirt in fabrics, I'm going back to a top loader when this present washer kicks it.