Dirty laundry. Whether it is a monster in the closet, waking you up in the middle of a stormy night in fright to see a monstrous shape at the corner of your room or something at the back of your mind waiting to be handled, it can be a real pain. Let’s face it, dirty laundry is a pesky task that never actually goes away despite how much you try to get rid of it. If there’s one thing adulthood teaches, it would be dirty laundry never goes away. As much as you try to get rid of it, it keeps seeping back into your life like the water seeping into a rowboat with a hole at the bottom, heading to the bottom of the lake. There will always be dirty clothes to wash at the end of each day, week, and month; this fact will never change – especially now, during the Covid-19 disaster when we are advised to take compulsory showers at least once a day especially after returning home from somewhere.

So how do we go about conquering this “monster in the closet” and making sure it doesn’t grow bigger and bigger, finally enveloping our daily lives, our moods, and God forbid – our immune systems? Here are 5 steps on how to practice good laundry hygiene during this time of sickness and destruction: –

Don’t drag the germs in with you

You may have heard the suggestion by World Health Organization (WHO) to practice good laundry hygiene at all times by changing your clothes as soon as you reach home from going out to grab sundry supplies from your nearest mini-mart or supermarket (as that is the only outing we are all allowed in this movement restriction control period). WHO is right. In fact, scrap just changing clothes. You should take a shower (a shower that includes washing your hair in order to get rid of the unseen airborne viruses that are entangled in the jungle on your head– unless you are bald).  You may not see it – as with the case with other particles in the air – but here’s a little-known fact: there are two types of germs that you unknowingly bring home with you along with your handbags and briefcases at the end of every day. One is the Staphylococcus – which is a bacteria found on the skin or in the nose and spreads easily from person to person (which is exactly why public transports are considered one of the filthiest cesspools in the city – you get the germs from the person standing beside you transferred onto your clothes and the Staphylococcus is one).

The second microbe is the Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and is a deadly bacterium that causes infections in different parts of the body upon contamination. As it is, the world is already a dirty place, thanks to these two germs. The last thing we need is more germs, i.e., the Covid-19 coronavirus – which is especially dangerous because it’s airborne, meaning one doesn’t even require contact with an infected person in order to be stricken with an illness and later on, possible death. You just have to leave the house, breathe in the dangerous Covid-19 particles and return without having a change of clothes, let alone showering – and within a few days, you may be experiencing serious breathing difficulties. Back to the case of the monster in the closet (the dirty laundry pile that usually reaches its full height at the end of the week, where it spoils your weekend by forcing you to get rid of it all day), isn’t this a better solution? To make your laundry pile smaller by dumping dirty clothes in the washing machine every 3 days instead of at the end of the week– where the load is usually huge and the effort and time taken to hang them out to dry is more tedious.

All Must Go

This brings us to our next point – which is to spare no effort in bringing the monster in your closet down to size – literally and figuratively. As soon as you have reached home and changed out of your clothes or showered and changed, go around the entire house and collect all shirts draped over chairs, leggings dangling off lampshades, and dirty socks lying on the floor – whether you live alone or with family. Add it to the next day’s load and wash and dry it as soon as possible – at the end of the day, when you are home from work. Make dinner as simple as possible. We have a larger problem to solve and that is dirty laundry. Your health is on the line. Eating heavy and grand dinners can wait. If you are a stay-at-home mom, good – you have the whole day to fight this laundry monster. Wash the two days’ worth of dirty laundry and dry them as soon as the washing machine or tumble dryer signals the end of its wash cycle and as soon as that batch has been put out to dry in the sun, repeat by gathering today’s load and adding it with the next day’s load.

Do Not Mix

However, exercise some precaution when it comes to piling the laundry basket and later on, your washing machine because not all clothes can be mixed. Therefore, after you have gone scouring the house for stray dirty items of clothing, set them down and individually separate the undergarments, regular clothes (outer garments), and towels. This is to ensure that the germs from the undergarments do not mix with the germs from the outer garments and towels (because each type of clothing comes with their own set of germs due to differences in terms of uses and body contact).  In fact, some no-nonsense people even choose to hand-wash their undergarments separately in hot water, making sure they do not come into contact with the machine at all just for hygiene purposes. Hand-washing your undergarments separately could be an option – especially if you live alone and the laundry load isn’t that big. Otherwise, you do not have to trouble yourself. Just put it aside, to be combined and dumped into the washing machine with tomorrow’s undergarment load – as you would with the towel and sock loads.

So now, you have two loads to wash and hang up in a day – the outer garment load and the undergarment load. The socks can be soaked in soapy water and hand-washed over the weekends – or if you have managed to gather enough from your entire family to make a washing machine load, there would be no problem if you want to use the washing machine instead to make your life easier as you are, after all cleaning up after an entire family and not just yourself. The towels don’t have to be washed very frequently but now with the pandemic around us, increase the washing time for towels to weekly or if you are out of time and towels, just mix them with your outer garment load as the germs on the towel and on your shirts, jeans, etc., aren’t that much different. However, this is only if you are desperate. Do not do this all the time; instead, follow the safer regime and push it to the end of the week, in line with the sock load – one after the other. Fear not. These two items of clothing aren’t going to ruin your weekend by taking up all your precious time doing laundry as towels and socks are really easy to hang out to dry.

Washing Machines Need Washing Too  

Just like your clothes, your washing machine gets dirty too. Disgusting buildups of ammonia, laundry dirt, and minerals tend to collect in the vents of your washing machine by the end of 3 months. Therefore, don’t be surprised if your washing machine starts to smell as bad as your husband’s sweaty shirts around this time. Unlike some microwave ovens and water filtration systems, the washing machine usually does not clean itself. There are self-cleaning washing machines, though – but you will have to pay a handsome sum to get one of your own. Besides, even those have to be dismantled and cleaned at some point. Point blank, every piece of machinery has to be cleaned at some point. You have to clean the very apparatus you use to clean clothes itself or it will backfire and leave your clothes dirtier than before it went inside. It isn’t hard. Just fill the wash chamber with hot, soapy water (detergent) and add four cups of white vinegar to the mix before turning it on like you normally would to wash clothes and let it carry out its wash cycle till it’s over.

After it’s over, empty out the ‘barrel’ (located somewhere inside the machine, depending on what brand you use) of all dirt and debris accumulated in it over the past few months. If you do not have any kind of vinegar in your possession, improvise with bleach. It does as great a deep-cleaning job as any other cleaning agent. As for tumble-dryers, a bit more effort and time is required. You need a brush to scrub the vertical wash chamber clean manually with soap and the aforementioned white vinegar – or bleach – and to empty out the barrel of dirt and debris.

Ecover Non Bio Laundry Liquid

In order to get exceptional washing results – whether you are referring to the clothes or the machine that helps you do most of your cleaning, switch to Ecover Non Bio Laundry Liquid. The Ecover line of products is known for being as environmentally-friendly as possible with even the bottles being eco-friendly due to the usage of ‘sea plastic’ – a formula that wouldn’t even harm marine life due to its lack of toxicity if the bottle happens to be thrown into the ocean. As for the ingredients, fear not as Ecover Non Bio Laundry Liquid is plant-based and features Aqua, Sodium Laurylsulfate, Coco-glucoside, Fatty acid methyl esters ethoxylate, Sodium cocoate & Sodium oleate, Benzyl Alcohol, Polypropylene terephtalate, Sodium Chloride, Sodium Citrate, Perfume, Citric Acid, Linalool, Limonene, Citronellol, and Trisodium Ethylenediamine Disuccinate.

The positive feedback from satisfied souls on 100comments.com themselves would gladly testify to the skin-friendliness of the detergent liquid – suitable for those who suffer skin allergies (as the residue from the detergent does seep into your laundry, which later comes into close contact with your skin, and acts as a potential irritant to those who have allergies to the ingredients usually found in most brands of fabric detergents (usually non-eco-friendly products). Just like the other line of products carried by this brand, Ecover Non Bio laundry liquid doesn’t use artificial colourings/optical brighteners (in order to enhance the colour of the product and attract the attention of potential consumers). Use this laundry liquid to wash both your clothes AND washing machine, marvel at the results, and leave a positive comment on 100comments.com.

For more information on the Ecover Non Bio Laundry Liquid, visit https://100comments.com/ecover-non-bio-laundry-liquid/ or their Facebook page @ https://www.facebook.com/EcoverUK/.