Fabric Care

The never-ending heat wave finally broke, so I took the opportunity to do some hot water laundry projects. I’ve been meaning to try laundry stripping aka soaking clothes and linens in a mix of borax and washing soda to lift out built up soap and grime. My first load was towels and bras with deodorant stains.

The process takes about four hours. It’s also pretty popular on Tik Tok, where commenters describe the accumulation of dirty water as “satisfying.” I would rate the result as good for the towels ( three out of four came out softer and brighter, one still felt stiff after drying), bad for the bras (which might be due to them not being natural fabrics).

The next thing on my to do list was more dying of stained garments. I first tried this last week, but I had my dye ratio wrong and the result looked more like tie dye.

I bought more dye and redyed last week’s gown and also tinted a polo shirt and a wool scarf that I never wore become I wasn’t vibing with the bland brown colour.

The results were much better this time. The dress came out closer to the indigo colour I originally wanted and it’s much more even. The polo is a little lighter but the discolouration seems to have disappeared. The scarf, however, was a bit of a disaster.

I forgot that you can’t put wool on hot water unless you want a tiny, shrunken scarf. I was able to stretch it out a bit but it is now basically a doll blanket. Plus it took on too much dye obscuring the Tag Heuer logo that was printed on the scarf. Oh well.