How To Get Grease Out of Clothing

   This brief post is brought to you by the small stain on the front of my new free top.  Don't you just love that grease spot that does not budge in the wash no matter how much stain treatment you use?  Ugg...  I have  found that the best way to remove grease from fabric is actually very simple.  Dawn.  Simple old Dawn dis soap.  Put the item in warm water with a heavy dose of Dawn in the water and let it soak for an hour or so.  If anything will get great out this will.  There are other dish soaps that work but none as well as Dawn so far as I can tell.  I guess Dawn really is tough on grease like they say.  For more laundry tips check out the laundry series I did last year.

The Laundry Series

  Last year (before my hiatus aka birth of third child) I did a popular laundry series.  When I was going through and cleaning up the site a bit I noticed that the series never got it's own category on my blog.  I gave it it's own category today (see my right sidebar for categories) and you can also go right to it here.  I hope this makes it a lot easier to find as I am still getting comments on it a year later.  It's so frustrating when you can't easily find what you are looking for. I hope this helps.

Laundry Tip #7

This next tip is very simple and will save you a bundle especially if you purchase pre-owned clothing.  I love buying my kids clothing on Ebay or at a great little consignment store near me.  I have found some incredible deals on clothing that has grease stains on it.  They are usually very easy to get out it you know how.

So how do you get grease (from food) out of clothing you ask?  Dawn.  Yep simple Dawn dish soap.  I put a table spoon of Dawn into a sink full of warn water with the clothing and let it sit for about an hour.  It has not failed me yet.  If your nervous it won't work put a little extra soap in and give it a gentle scrub.  I find Dawn works better than the other soaps.  I guess their ad is right it really does cut the grease.

Many times I have been able to re-consign or Ebay those same items for twice the price after my kids have worn them because they no longer had that nasty stain.

Laundry Tip #6

The Dryer Vent

   So when was the last time you cleaned out your dryer vent? The little on inside the dryer is great but that's not the one I'm talking about.  I'm talking about the one that vents to the outside.

  Checking the outside vent on occasion is important for two reasons.  One because if it does not open or is clogged your dryer will be extremely inefficient and two and most importantly because a clogged dryer vent can cause a fire.

  This is what a dirty partially clogged outer dryer vent looks like:

  Oh yeah that's mine yesterday when I checked it.

  Most of the bigger home improvements we have made to our last two homes have been done by local firemen who do contracting work on the side.  That in and of it's self is a great saver but I'll write about that another time.  My reason for bringing it up now is that it was these great guys who installed my dryer vent when we moved in to this house and instilled upon me the importance of keeping it cleaned out.  A clogged vent is apparently a big cause of fires around here in the winter as peoples vents get clogged and literally freeze shut from the cold.

  I went out to check mine yesterday because although I do not use my dryer nearly as much as I did a few years ago I still use it enough to know that things that normally dry in 10 minutes were taking 20.  I knew something was off and where the most likely source was.  I was right as you can see my vent was nice and dirty.

  The best way to clean it:  The outside part of the vent is easy, a damp cloth should do it.  The trickier part is cleaning the actual vent hose.  I have found for me that the best way is to pull the hose away from the vent.  They usually slide together and are held together with a clamp.  Once you pull it apart take a wire coat hanger and flatten it out leaving the hook at the end.  You can use the hook to pull out the big pieces and the rest of the hanger will work to scrape the gunk off the side walls of the hose.  Usually after I do that I take the hose from my canister vacuum and vacuum out the rest.  Attach the hose back to the vent and you should be good to go.  Just a note the longer the vent hose the harder it will be to get it all out.  My hose is very long and I have given up on getting it completely clean I just look to get he bulk of it out.

  Today with a clean vent my loads are back to drying in their usual time.  At this time of the year my electric bill is high enough with out an inefficient dryer. 

For even more money saving ideas visit lifeasmom.com

 

  

Laundry Tip #5 . The Stain Remedy

The following comes from The Tightwad Gazette and is the best stain formula I have ever tried.  Just make sure you test your items for colorfastness prior to use.

2 cups color safe powder bleach

2 cups Cascade powder dish detergent

5 Gallons of super hot water

Mix it together letting everything dissolve before putting the clothing in.  You will want to wear gloves.  Add the clothing and let it soak overnight.    If this does not get your stains out nothing will.  I put mine in a cold water express cycle in the washer after to remove the soap.  I have found it useful to keep my stain bin right next to my washer that way when something will not come out in the regular wash I simply add it to the bin.  when the bin is full it's time for a stain wash.  I use a 16 gallon plastic tote for my stain washes.

Laundry Tip #4 Detergent

  Each persons washer and water is different so the amount of detergent you need to use is different.  You also need to consider how dirty your laundry actually is and what the fabrics are.  Following the manufacturers fill line on the cap or scoop is generally wasteful overkill. Do some experimenting of your own to see how much you really need to get a load clean. 

I have found that most of my loads get just as clean using a table spoon or two of liquid detergent as they did when I filled it to the line.  I often found that using the recommended amount of detergent made my washer outlet fill with bubbles.  What a waste.  Also remember that if you use a stain treatment like Shout or Zout they are basically concentrated detergent so a load that has stain treated items will generally not need as much detergent.  I have also been known to coat a big stain with scrubbed in detergent to get a stain out if I need the item to get out of the wash quickly and it is not to tough of a stain.  Stay tuned for recipe for a great stain treatment that gets it all out and inexpensivly.

Laundry Tip #3

Laundry tip number three is very simple.  I gleaned this tid bit of information from one of my favorite books ever The Tightwad Gazette.  Cut your dryer sheets into three pieces.  It only takes a minute and save you $$$.  I cut them all at one when I open the box.  A good pair of scissors will cut half an average box at a time.

One other tip regarding dryer sheets.  They make great dusters after they have been used.  Check out one of my older posts here to see how much you can save by hanging your laundry.  I wont dwell on that because it's beating a dead horse but it is a HUGE saver.  I don't like the feel some fabrics like jeans or towels have after being line dried so I put them in the dryer on low for 10 minutes after they are nearly dried on the line.  Obviously you still wan to do a full dryer load.

Laundry Saving Tip #2

My second time and money saver for laundry is keeping it all one color.  All my lines are white or very very light in color.  This allows me to do less loads in the end by using the following technique.

My kids both have their own rooms and laundry and of course hubby and I have a basket in our closet.  All the dirty items from that person/ room go in the basket in their room including towels.  Every three days or so that basket is emptied and divided between colors and lights / whites.  If  my linens were not white I would be running a nearly empty white load and a very full color load or possibly two loads of colors.  Keeping the linens all white means more efficiency in water, electricity ad also time.  I do not do a separate towel or sheet load. 

There are some other benefits as well .  I can bleach towels that are looking a little dingy and I don't have to worry what sheet go with what bed. Keep it simple.  We do have colored duvet covers and comforters but those are thrown in to the colored wash on "light" laundry days so they do not create another load either.

Laundry Tip #1 Saving the Socks

  Over the years I have become somewhat of a laundry queen.  With two small kids as well as my husband and myself there is a lot of laundry but when you add my Ebay laundry to the mix it can really get crazy.  In order to keep it under control both cost and time wise I have developed quite a few helpful techniques and tips that I'm happy to share.  I plan on sharing several laundry tips over the next few days.

  The first tip is primarily for those who have little ones at home but certainly applies to everyone.  For the longest time I was daunted by the mystery of where the other sock went?  You know what I mean.  You're pretty sure both socks went into the wash so why is it now there is only one?  I've always hated throwing away stray socks and lets face it I don't always remember to re-use them as dust cloths.

  When my first child was born five years ago I was swimming in laundry ( or so I thought then).  Thinking I would get something accomplished I put in a full load late one night only to go to the washer the next morning to see an error message.  Blast that thing.  I followed the manual to the tee to no avail.  Ready to give up I called the pricey service tech.  Thankfully he was able to come out that same day as we were running low on available clothing.  Many dollars later the culprit was found.  BABY SOCKS!! O yeah!!  There were at least three of my infant sons socks stuck in the hoses of the washer and one in some other random place.  Those were the most expensive socks I had over owned. 

  So on to the good part of the story.  The wonderful service tech gave me some great sock advice (and some other laundry tips I will share in another post this week) never put loose socks in the laundry.  For a second I scratched my head thinking what and I supposed to do tie them together?  The answer he said was lingerie bags!  You can get them super cheap just about anywhere and you can use them for your gentle items but also use them to defeat the sock monster.

 I have also found that buying a ton of the same socks is a great time and money saver.  It is much easier to pair up the socks and you don't have to go out and buy new ones every time someone looses one or it gets a hole.  I find great deals on socks for kids at Kohls.  I just ordered my son 16 pairs of identical socks for $8 and change shipped.

Stay tuned for more laundry tips and be sure to check out lifasmom for some great Frugal Friday ideas.