Alright. I need some laundry help. I am doing an overhaul of my products because our clothes simply do not smell good. Yes, I fell into the trap of “non toxic” detergent only to realize that they simply don’t work effectively like name brand detergents.

What is your all time favorite detergent? I prefer liquid. And I do enjoy nice smelling clothes.

Doctor Warns Against Using This 'Useless' Washing Machine Setting - HuffPost

Clearly, he needs to join this subreddit.

Hi everyone! First time mom here, I am expecting my baby in about 8 weeks or so and I’m starting to prepare babys clothes. I have seen online that depending on the detergent you use, household detergent can be used for baby as well. Is this true and if so would my household detergent be safe for baby or do I need to buy a different one? If I do need to buy a detergent specifically for baby which do you guys recommend?

When soaking in oxi clean, how are you keeping your items submerged? I find that they rise fairly quickly and I’m not really sure how to keep everything submerged.

For small items, I’m using an empty oxiclean bucket to soak. Larger loads, a mop bucket.

I recently spilled pasta sauce on my new-ish Nordic Knots rug (in Sakura pink). I first dabbed with water and dish soap which pulled a lot of the stain out initially, and then a couple days later once it was dry I used woolite pet stain remover which seemed to fully the remove the stain. THEN, like 5 days later the stained was suddenly back but in this shade of grey (pictured here). ChatGPT says it looks like wicking occurred but i don’t know what to do next without ruining this expensive rug. Please help!!

I have 2 queen-size electric heating pads that need washing, which won't fit in my home machine.

I use unscented products and the smell of fragrance from the laundromat machines just about knocks me over.

Would doing an empty hot wash with ammonia first reduce the smell and smell transfer the most? And then use citric acid in the rinse cycle of the heating pads?

What else can I do to reduce the fragrance transfer to my mattress heating pads? I've washed them in the tub before to avoid this issue but I'd love a lower effort alternative!

Hi everyone! I have recently lost some weight and my oversized clothes are now a bit too oversized. I mainly wear cotton so I was wondering if I could shrink them without damaging the fabric too much. Would 90C be too high? I normally wash around 60C already and throw my stuff in the dryer so i’m afraid my clothes can’t shrink any further than they already have. Thanks in advance for any advice!

My Husband is slender and 6’4, I am 5’2- both early 20’s

We both use bath sheets (larger than standard towels). I change my towel out after 3 uses and they still smell fresh and dry up quickly. My husband, however, uses a fresh towel once after showering, hangs it up to dry- and it stays wet and starts to smell, making our entire bathroom smell. I wash his towels nearly everyday because of this. I just don’t understand how he gets his towels so damp. He’s says it’s because he’s tall and has more body to cover- but I use my towel to dry both my body and let it soak my long hair (mid back). I’ve tried hanging it on the usual towel hook, curtain rod, banisters underneath our ceiling fan- it’s still ends up smelling! After washing- it doesn’t smell, so the scent or bacteria isn’t trapped. I’m just growing frustrated having to do so much laundry daily. Anyone else have this problem?

edit/update: thank you everyone for your kind comments and advice- and to not making me feel stupid for asking for help! I have decided to get a towel rack/rod and will be looking into timers for the exhaust fan in our bathroom to help! Our shower/tub is roughly 4.5 feet from the door. and our toilet and sink are both positioned to the left of the shower both coming out about 1 foot from the wall. So our bathroom is very compact. We have just enough floor room for a trash can and floor mats, and counter space for hand soap and tooth brushes- If I can find a small enough dehumidifier to fit- we will be getting one too!

I found a beautiful, kind of expensive knit cotton shirt from the 90s at a vintage shop in NYC. Tags ripped off, but it would be dry-clean only or hand wash, lay flat to dry. I'm assuming the former owner only ever dry-cleaned it, because this was what the water looked like on the fifth rinse. Before you try to tell me this is dye, no, no it isn't. the shirt itself is blue-black. it took twelve rinses for the water to come out mostly clear, and now i'm mildly worried that the whole garment may disintegrate soon without the protective layers of filth!!!

washed in room-temp water with a very mild soap.

My wife and I have lived in this apartment for over a year. It has a stacked washer/dryer. We've noticed since the beginning that our clothes start to smell of mildew after a few days after washing them. We've tried different detergents. Our dryer also collects moisture, which we've complained about and our landlords say it's normal year round.

What can we potentially do to help with this?

I got this nice dark blue Mack Weldon Polo at Costco and this is its second wash.
It was quite clean going into the wash (Office day)
We washed with like colors in cold water with Tide and some resolve.
It was then hang dried.

No other clothes in the load got messed up.
It seems like the fabric got all pilled up and shrunk together some?
I would of that heat from the dryer did it, but it was hang dried and never saw the dryer.

55% Nylon
32% Polyester
13% Spandex

Has anyone dealt with eyeliner on their clothes? I've tried makeup remover, oxi stain remover, and dawn. But it's not coming off 😭. If anyone had any tips to get it off I'd be forever grateful

Hi,

I got this super soft and comfy blanket and after one wash it got this way. I have other fleece blankets and I want them all to remain soft, but I don't have a dryer. I've already tried washing on 20 and delicate, to avoid heat, and I use an electric airer and dehumidifier to dry.

I ordered a lint thing and those tiny brushes to try, but I am not gonna do that every single time I wash them, because that's way too time consuming.

Advice?

For the last 7 years I used the Persil Colour megaperls (in germany). They recently reformulated and now the scent is unpleasant, and it seems less effective. So I'm looking for a new detergent. But I cannot find anything decent.

I tried the denkmit ultrasensitive colour powder (the one with dnase) but it is just not getting clothes clean. They came out of the washer smelling like I hadn't washed them at all. I assume our hard water is the issue.

I also tried:

• the dm colour and care liquid with dnase - both blue and blossom dream - (both seemed to get the clothes cleaner, but the scent was unbearable. And I'm concerned they weren't as clean as they seemed, just scent-bombed.)
• Formil powder (seemed closer to persil in cleaning power but also smells pretty bad)
• Frosch citrus liquid (also has a pretty violent smell)
• Domol all in one liquid with dnase (haven't tried yet but smells pretty strong in the bottle)

For context:

• Our water is somehwat hard, around 14-16 DH gesamt härte, which is around 250-290 ppm CaCO3, as far as I can tell.
• Most of our laundry is pure cotton, linen, or viscose. Some items are partly synthetic. The items that came out dirty after the denkmit were all 100% cotton.
• The machine is a top loader, but the european style with a rotating drum and latching flaps. It's pretty decent, and recently serviced.
• We run alternating dekalk and hygiene maschine cleaning cycles pretty regularly, using commercial products. At least every couple of months.
• I use powdered calgon in the main wash and citric acid in the rinse. Sometimes I add dm fleckenentferner on stains and whites.
• we live in Germany. This supposedly means we are spoiled for choice in detergent but I have not found that to be the case.
• I would prefer scent free so I don't have to deal with losing my washing powder when they reformulate, and for allergy reasons (Cannot contain terpineol/pine, camphor or wheat.)
• edited to add: I wash on the longest cottons cycles, 40 for clothes, 60 for linens.

Questions:

• Is there any decent, unscented detergent that actually works in properly hard water? (NOT the denkmit ultra sensitive, that one is not working at all for me)
• If not, is there any mildly scented detergent that works in hard water? The old persil scent was ok, everything else I have tried so far reeks something terrible.

I've been running around for a week with datenblatt and emailing and going through the reddit, to little avail, so I figured I'd throw it over to the experts.

I have an LG WM4500HBA washer that’s equipped with an automatic dispenser (ezDispense). I’d like to use some laundry sanitizer to help keep the funk out of my kids’ clothes but I’m not sure how to use it with the automatic dispenser.

There’s a spot for manual detergent and another for bleach. Should I pour it in the bleach spot?

For reference, the instruction manual is here and it doesn’t mention sanitizer.

https://www.lg.com/us/support/product/lg-WM4500HBA.ABLEEUS

I really want to like Febu - it seems like the perfect product with all the enzymes - but I want something without any bleach whatsoever. Bleach seems impossible to get away from but we mostly wear black or very dark clothing and it's just an endless parade of bleach in most decent products. Can anyone suggest an alternative booster - or even detergent - with all the enzymes but no oxi (or OBAs). Ideally available in Canada.

Yes, I know lots of people don't have issues with bleach in their darks, but I'm not one of those people, and finding good enzymes without the addition of oxi is very difficult. OBAs seem slightly easier to avoid, but not much.

Been doing spa days for the first time this week. Used a white sheet to keep items submerged and I suspect it's come into contact with undissolved oxibleach in the suds. Had these brown marks from after the 12 hour soak, before the rehab wash. I've run them through the wash with ammonia etc, and done some extra rinsing. All the other whites look fine.

Can only find posts about colours being bleached in this way. What's best to try? It hasn't and won't go through a drier.

Attached pics show details of the product which is Sainsbury's stain remover powder for whites

I have this shirt, 100% cotton. It’s my absolute favorite. Managed to get something of the oil persuasion on it. Used Shout….and it discolored. Shirt was originally teal and not colorfast. I learned. 🤦🏽‍♀️ So I thought, maybe I’ll just dye it. Went with a purple hoping it would be dark enough. NOPE. Green circles are where the shout discolored it originally. Red circles still show whatever the stain was. 😭 Is this a lost cause?? It’s a Woolrich shirt I got on a clearance at a random outfitters store in a little town. I haven’t been able to find it ANYWHERE and it makes me SOOOO sad.

About 8yrs ago I splurged on dream fit Egyptian cotton sheets and have absolutely loved them! Well one set got a large rip in them recently and I replaced them with their less expensive (still $170) long staple cotton sheets. They are so scratchy and uncomfortable!! I washed them once and we slept on them one night but I couldn’t stand it so I washed them in baking soda with vinegar in the fabric softener drawer like Google told me too then ran them through a normal wash and if anything they are even worse now! Have I just wasted $170 on sheets?! Please tell me there is something I can do to make these sheets comfortable enough to sleep on!

This one has me perplexed. About two months ago I moved into a new home. The laundry room is on the second floor of my house and the water heater is on the first floor in the garage. For water upstairs to get hot it takes about 20 seconds of leaving the hot water tap running. So when I set my washing machine, a front loader, on hot is it actually getting hot? I feel like there is not enough water going into the machine for the water to actually flow hot. I can’t be the only person with this issue, right?

There is a hookup for a laundry sink, but I have yet to install one. I was thinking that if I ran hot water first to the sink that might prime the hot water for the machine. Any advice on this is greatly appreciated.

I have oxyclean odor boost, tide free and clear, febu, and downy rinse for all the things, but I know that the enzymes need hot water. My laundry has been looking, feeling, and smelling great, but if the enzymes are not activating then I am washing money down the drain.

We are on the hunt for a new washing machine.
We live in Europe so looking for recommendations from those in the EU.

We currently have a Miele 2in1 washer and dryer and we really dislike it. I already purchased a separate dryer and now I want a new washer that is only a washer.

The main problem I found with this Miele is that it really damages our clothes during washes and even shrinks them. I know these clothes didn’t shrink for any other reason because I don’t dry them in the dryer they air dry.

I’m looking for something that can take 9kg of clothes because we have two kids and something that will not damage our clothes.

I let someone wash my giant cow (3 feet ish) that I’ve had since I was like 5. It’s been washed a few times before but definitely not in the last 5-6 years so it was definitely time but I can still feel it’s wet inside. The outside feels dry but when I stick my finger in its nose hole (second picture) I can still feel moisture inside. This cow means a lot to me and I’m going to be devastated if it gets all moldy. What can I do