Mira Dessy

Clothes feeling dingy or dirty after washing? Get the ingredients to get your clothes really clean!

Ready to strip?
Nope.

Not that kind of stripping.
Laundry stripping.

Have you heard of it?

Maybe not, but I’m here to tell you that this is one type of stripping you definitely want to do.

You may be thinking, “My clothes are clean.”
Are they really?

Sure, they’ve come out of the washing machine and gone through the dryer. Folded or hanging and happy in their closet-home.

But have you noticed that your linens are looking a little dingy? Or perhaps your clothes have a little bit of funk to them, especially now that summer is coming. You’ve washed things but they just don’t look as good as they used to. There’s a reason for that. I like to call it laundry funk.

What is laundry funk?

It’s residues from daily use. When you’re wearing, or sleeping in or on, cloth it can pick up body oils and bacteria. We don’t see them.

The laundry looks and smells clean. But those items don’t really come out when you’re washing your laundry the regular way. So it’s a good idea to give it a strip once in a while.

What kind of water you have makes a difference too. Hard water is the worst. If your water is hard that means it has a lot of calcium, iron, magnesium, and manganese.

That winds up, over time, sticking to your clothes and sheets.

Hard water can also cause your clothes to look dingy over time. It’s also what makes towels feel hard and scratchy, and nobody likes that. It doesn’t matter if you’re on a well or municipal water.

Actually 85% of Americans have to deal with hard water. The only way to find out what kind of water you have is to test it and then install the proper water filter.

Even balancing your water hardness isn’t going to take away body oils and some of the other buildup.

Soft water is ideal for washing you, your laundry, and keeping your appliances from getting the mineral buildup that hard water can leave behind.

That doesn’t mean you don’t still have body oil issues or heavy stink from summer sweat.

Hard water or soft, if you’re not stripping your laundry you’re probably still wearing a bit of laundry funk. And who wants that?

Time to strip!

You’re already a fan of our enzyme stain remover because, well, it’s amazing at getting out stains. But it’s even better than you thought. It’s the secret ingredient when it comes to getting rid of laundry funk.

Want to know exactly how to strip your wash? It’s easy:

1 cap MyGreenFills Laundry Wash
3 scoops of MyGreenFills Enzyme Stain Remover
1/2 Cup Distilled Vinegar
3 Tablespoons Borax
3 Tablespoons Washing Soda (NOT baking soda)*
HOT, HOT, HOT water

Be prepared to watch your soaking water turn grey or even black depending on how much buildup is on your laundry. It’s best to do this with clean laundry.

Put the hottest water you can stand into a bathtub
If you don’t have a tub you can use a large 10 gallon bucket but you’ll want to adjust the amounts – start with 2/3 of the above amounts

Add the ingredients and swish to fully dissolve
Add the clothes, dunking them in to make sure they are completely wet and mostly submerged

Leave for 4 hours, stirring every 45-ish minutes
Wring out the clothes
Wash the clothes in warm water with no detergent

Drain that nasty looking water out of the tub
Run through the dryer as normal

Important note, do not mix loads. Strip your laundry loads (gentles, whites, darks, colors) separately. Do not put a red sock in with your tighty whiteys (unless you want pink ones that is).

Towels and linens are best done separate from clothes.
Watch the dirt, grime, and funk disappear.

You’re welcome.

How often do I do this?

At this point you’re really excited to get going but you may be wondering “Just how often do I do this laundry stripping thing?

The dog’s bed? Probably weekly.

Otherwise we recommend laundry stripping when your items get a little dingy looking. Or when even your clean clothes start to have a bit of an odor to them.

If you’re a fan of pre-loved clothes (we love ‘em too) and are doing your shopping on Mercari, Thred-Up, Poshmark or the thrift store, we recommend stripping before you wear it. After all you don’t know how it was washed before you got it. Stripping it first means that it’ll be really clean when you wear it for the first time.

Only strip those items that can be washed, of course — please don’t strip wash that fab find leather jacket.
Linens, mattress covers, and comforters could use a good strip wash every 3 months.

Here’s to clean funk-free laundry everywhere.

*For all you science geeks out there. Yes I know it’s only one molecule but it makes a big difference. Washing Soda is Sodium Carbonate and Baking Soda is Sodium Bicarbonate.

That’s why you can bake (and do gentle cleaning) with sodium bicarbonate. For heavy duty cleaning tasks (like this) you really want sodium carbonate.

Sources:

https://www.water-rightgroup.com/blog/hard-water-ruining-laundry/
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