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Laundry Day using Greener Living Soap Nuts

Have you ever wondered what goes on behind closed doors? Well, this is where I bare all concerning our family's "dirty laundry."

We are a family of three; dad, mom and daughter. We do about 10 loads of laundry in a given week which breaks down as follows:

1 reds/pinks/brights
1 lights
1 darks
1 jeans
1 whites
2 towels and robes
2 sheets
1-2 other: rugs, beach towels, car washing towels, blankets, tablecloths, gym clothes, etc.

I suspect this is equal to about 20 standard loads since I have a super huge LG front loading washer and dryer. One of the large 2.2lbs Greener Living Soap Nut bags lasted us over a year! Depending on your family's washing needs, this may help in determining how much to order for the year.

Here is our typical laundry week: Monday is Wash Day for clothes, followed by Towel Tuesday, Sheet Saturday and then the 1-2 miscellaneous loads are whenever they make sense or I have time during the week. This is not cast in stone but we always seem to go back to it for whatever reason. Obviously, neither the day nor the order matters. What matters is that you have a plan that works for your family and your schedule.

On a super organized week, we all bring our clothes down on Sunday night and get them sorted but that rarely happens in anything other than my dreams. Typically, we all bring our baskets and hangers down at breakfast time Monday morning. I discard the soap nuts from last week and then load 8-10 new soap nuts into the small drawstring bag  and pull the drawstring tight. This will last me all week. The little bag is placed into a "dedicated to soap nuts pottery coffee mug" and filled with steaming hot water to soak while we sort the laundry. I do this because my first load is always the red/pink load which gets washed in cold water. Since soap nuts need warm water to work best, soaking a fresh set of soap nuts while I sort the clothes makes the perfect soap nut soak for this first load.

If you wash everything in cold water, then you will want to make up some soap nut soak to use with all of your loads. Directions are on the big bag, and also on the How To Use page. I like the way our clothes come out using warm water whenever I can and since a front loader washer uses so little water anyway, I rather prefer this indulgence.

Once everything is sorted, our red/pink load goes into the washer. Actually, we have made a game out of tossing the reds and pinks into the open washer door, keeping a very accurate score as we go which satisfies our competitive urges and just plain adds some levity to an otherwise mundane chore. Then, I pour the mug of soap nut soak along with the soap nut filled bag onto the clothing in the washer and start the wash cycle. The red/pink load is the shortest wash cycle load I do, so it shortens my overall laundry time to wash this load first and get it into the dryer right away. Then I wash lights, darks and the jeans with warm water and the whites with warm or hot water along with one scoop of Oxi-Clean. I have found this order works for me since the jeans take the longest to dry and the whites take the longest to wash which balances our the timing of things. The dad in "Cheaper by the Dozen" and I have a lot in common, I'm afraid.

Oh, one more tip and game to play is "Who can find the soap nut bag for the next load?"  Here is my trick for that and it solves another issue at the same time. Did you know that wrinkles in clothing can come from the washer and/or the dryer? Well, you can eliminate the washer wrinkles by shaking out the clothes a little as you transfer them into the dryer. And guess what? Sometimes the little drawstring bag conveniently falls to the floor making it easy to find for the next load! Usually the little soap nut bag is on the very bottom of drum which may just be the way it works in a front loading washer.

Unfortunately, once in a while I get all done loading the dryer only to discover that I have not found the soap nut bag. Ugh. You have two choices here. Make up a second bag and toss it into the washer until you find the other bag while folding clothes, or dig into the dryer and find the bag. Either way works, and I have done both depending on my mood. The nuts will still be good to use after a trip through dryer, it's no big deal.

Are you sitting down? I do not use any fabric softener or softener sheets. This was a hard habit to let go of, and it may be for you as well. But, let it go and you will be glad you did. It took a while but eventually once all of our clothes had been washed several times with soap nuts and purified in the process, there really was no need for any sort of softener. Really! Our clothes were being naturally softened by the soap nuts with no chemicals and no smells.

Okay, so that is a typical Monday for us. Tuesday after showers, all the towels come down for Towel Tuesday which was so named to help the family to remember to bring them down without further prompting each week. Saturday the sheets come off the bed, and the new sheets are put on right away. The dirty sheets come down at breakfast time to be washed, folded and ready for next week. I used to think having just one set of sheets made perfect sense, but after one too many trips to bed only to find that the bed was still unmade and the sheets were soaking wet in the washer at 10 PM, I decided that two sets of sheets were the way to go. Now it takes just a few minutes more than making the bed would have anyway and my family does not have to hear that blood curdling scream from the bedroom on Saturday night! Everyone is happier, trust me.

When the last load is washed for the day, I hang the soap nut wash bag on a tiny little hook next to washer to let it dry. Come Monday (I can hear the Jimmy Buffet song in my head as I write those words) when the bag is nice and dry, it is really easy to open up the drawstring bag, discard the used nuts and add new ones for the week. And the cycle begins all over again, no pun intended.

There you have it, our family's total and complete dirty laundry story. What's yours?