Vinegar Fridays

TGIVF!!

Hanging out laundry is one of the true delights of spring for me. But you can care for the environment in other ways when it comes to doing laundry, other than saving energy by not running your dryer. And if you're going to run your dryer, make sure you pop in some True Green2's dryer balls to cut back on how long it takes to dry the load (generally 25% less time). Just sayin'....

Personally, I can't fathom why anyone chooses to use a dryer if they have the opportunity not to. It makes no sense to me. Is it more work to hang laundry on the line? Well, yes. But you can look at it as exercise!

So today, we're heading into the laundry room. Here's how using distilled white vinegar can help save the environment while saving you a laundry load or so's worth of cash.

• Are your socks and white washcloths looking rather dingy? Boil a large pot of water (okay, so we have to go out to the kitchen) with a cup of vinegar in it and toss in your formerly white socks and washcloths. Turn off the heat and let them soak for the night.
• Stained linens? Soak them in a solution of vinegar and milk...yes, milk.
• Sloppy eaters in your family? Well, you can get mustard stains out by applying a small amount of white distilled vinegar on them. Tomato-based stains react well to a solution of the vinegar mixed with water.
• Sweaty people in your family? Spray undiluted vinegar directly on the underarms and collars of shirts before adding them to the load in the washer.
• Experiencing a bit of forgetfulness? It's okay, it happens to all of us from time to time. If you left a load of laundry in the washer until your next wash day (oh, that's why you ran out of underwear sooner than normal...and all this time you thought someone had a fetish and was swiping it from your drawer!), you can rid the load of the moldy, musty smell by simply adding a 2 or 3 cups of vinegar to the machine and running them through a cycle. Follow up with another cycle with your normal (hopefully environmentally-friendly) detergent, if you wish.
• You know how black clothing starts to fade? That's from soap residue. Add 1/4 - 1/2 cup of vinegar to the final rinse cycle to dissolve the alkalies in soaps and detergents. It also prevents yellowing of white clothes, brightens brights, softens fabrics naturally, keeps lint from sticking to your clothes and eliminates mold and mildew.
• Spent the evening in a smoky karaoke bar (oh what we'll put up with for a chance to sing!)? Hang your leather jacket or other clothing you can't or don't want to wash on your shower curtain rod. Fill the tub very HOT water with a cup of vinegar added to it. Shut the door and let the steam perform it's magic. Of course, I'm not advising this in drought areas. If you need to conserve water, perhaps you shouldn't wear your leather into a smoky bar.
• Just can't resist buying new clothes? Wash them before wearing them and add 1/2 cup white distilled vinegar to the water to get rid of all of the manufacturing chemicals you don't want up against your skin.
• While it's not currently sweater weather in much of the country, you can fluff up your sweaters by adding the 1/2 cup of vinegar to the last rinse cycle.

So much good comes out of such a little bottle of distilled white vinegar....who knew? Oh yeah, our grandparents did!

Next week, we'll chat about ironing with vinegar. Oh boy!

Keeping it green with vinegar,

Hana