14 Life Changing Laundry Cleaning Tips and Tricks

These life-changing laundry cleaning tips and tricks will help you to tackle your laundry and prevent the inevitable “wash when in doubt” scenario! Because who actually likes to do laundry? It is a chore that every single household has to deal with whether you are a family of three or of a big family of eight! Thanks to these tips and tricks, you’ll be able to say goodbye, piles of clothing on the couch, and, hello, to more fun with the family!

14 Life-Changing Laundry Cleaning Tips and Tricks to Simplify Your Life

1. Wash Your Washer

First things, first! Every three to six months, take the time to wash your washing machine. Sounds funny to do, but this will help clean up and remove any soap residue (from much detergent) that is accumulating and keep your clothes fresh and clean. You can’t get your clothes clean if your washer is dirty, right? To clean your machine, just run a regular cycle using hot or warm water (the hottest setting on your washer), and pour in 3 cups of cleaning vinegar at 7% or more. Let it run like a normal wash cycle. You’ll want to wipe down the edges, too, with a microfibre cloth to get to the knocks and crannies.

2. Clever Laundry Tips: Create a Laundry Sorter System

I love to have a laundry sorter with 4 areas. You can designate one for whites, one for dark clothes, and then a colored or towels and the last one for delicates. Honestly, you can use as many of these sorters as you want! Having a laundry sorter that has designated areas will save you time sorting out laundry for every load. Just label each one for what you want to go in and get the other members of your family to sort their own clothes. One of the few steps you’ll gladly delegate! Then you can just look over the clothing real fast as you toss it in to make sure a piece of clothing didn’t land in the wrong areas and wash. This will save you a lot of time and help prevent the inevitable washing a white sock with dark clothes scenario. You can find more compact styles to save space in your laundry room too. Save your delicate fabrics from shrinking, fading, and getting mixed with other colors.

3. Keep Track of Socks

Speaking of socks, to ensure you keep track of socks and other small garments, simply put them in a mesh garment bag and throw them in the washer. This is a way to secure them in a bag that has lots of tiny holes and allows you to wash the socks and other garments without losing them in the wash easily! You can also have a mesh bag per person if necessary to save on the sorting. You have the best chance to keep socks together either you’re using a front-loading machines or the top-loading ones.

Did you know that Mesh laundry bags can have so many uses? They do so much more than just laundry! It’s worth having a few lying around the house.

4. Informative Washer Lid

Have you ever had a piece of clothing ruined because you forgot to take it out of the load before throwing the rest in the dryer? I have! It can be so frustrating, especially if it was your partner who was trying to help that made a mistake. Here’s an awesome tip for when you need to remember which clothing items need special treatment before throwing the whole load into the dryer. CARE LABEL! Write the details on the lid of the washer with a dry erase marker or use sticky notes. If you do opt to use dry erase markers, I do recommend testing this to ensure it works on the lid of your washer without leaving a mess behind! This can help you decide whether or not to use delicate cycle or not.

5. Get Grease out of Clothes

Save your favorite shirt from ugly grease stains using these laundry cleaning tips. Heads up, this hack won’t use lemon juice, chlorine bleach, or lukewarm water.

If you have a little grease on a shirt or garment, take a piece of white chalk and rub it on the area where the grease is. Let it stand for 15 minutes, and then wash like normal. The chalk will draw out the grease and leave your shirt looking like new.

Or, if you don’t have chalk in the house, you could also use mild dish soap. Put a dollop of soap on the stay with a bit of water, let it sit for a few minutes, and then wash!

These tips work well on grease stains from:

Pizza
Cooking oils, like olive or canola oil
Fries
Any greasy food

6. Remove Ink Stains with Hairspray

Here’s an effective stain remover you can try. You can use hairspray to get the ink out of the fabric for nasty ink stains from pens and markers! That’s because hairspray can be a great solvent. You just saturate the stain thoroughly, let it stand for 10 minutes, and then tossed in the washer like normal.

7. Boost White Clothes

To revive the yellowed and greyed shirts that were once white, toss sliced lemons into a pot of boiling hot water. Turn off the heat, and add in your clothes and let them sit for an hour. Then wash as normal. It will get them looking a lot brighter. You can even go a step further and let them dry in the sun!

No lemons in the house? We’ve got you covered. You can also add a cup of vinegar to the rinse cycle to help brighten up your whites. Such a clever and easy yellow stains removal hack!

8. Darken Clothes Up

Have your dark clothes faded? Instead of discarding them or wearing them as if it was in style, try soaking in two cups of dark brewed tea or coffee. It works by adding natural dyes to the clothes to help revive them to their natural color. Let the clothes soak for an hour, then wash like normal. Yes, with your usual laundry detergent and fabric softener.

9. Un-Shrink Clothes – the Ultimate Laundry Cleaning Tip

Did your favorite shirt shrink in the wash? No problem! You don’t have to relegate it to the donation pile. You can bring it back by simply soaking your shrunken clothes in a sink of water with a tablespoon of hair conditioner. Let it sit for about 15 minutes. Then squeeze as much water out as you can and lay it flat to dry. As it starts to dry, gently stretch the garment out to help get it to go back to its original size. The mixture helps the natural fibers of the clothes straightened and lets it return to its original state. Isn’t that awesome?

10. Say “Goodbye” to Lipstick Stains

There is nothing worse than lipstick stains on white shirts, or any shirt, really! Anyway, regardless of the color of the shirt, you can get the stain out by blotting with bread first and then washing like normal. You’ll be surprised at the results. Bye bye to complicated mixtures with white vinegar, baking soda, or laundry soap.

11. De-wrinkle Clothes

Don’t have time to iron your clothes? I have great news for you: You don’t have to! Here’s a permanent press hack for you. Toss in a few ice cubes with the wrinkled garment into the dryer! As it heats up, the ice melts and will steam and de-wrinkle the clothes! Run the dryer on the hottest setting, and don’t crowd the dryer.

12. Dry Clothes Faster with a Towel

For those days when you are in a rush to get a load of laundry done, toss in a dry towel with the rest of the wet clothes. It will help dry all the clothes faster! Just remember, in this case, too, avoid overcrowding the dryer and make sure the towel is clean and fairly old to avoid a lint disaster!

13. Drying Bedding without Bunching

If you are drying a comforter, try this handy tip to prevent bunching and balling up. Toss in a tennis ball or two; it will toss it around as it dries (it will make quite a bit of noise, too), and keep your bedding from balling up as much! This works on pillows, comforters, and other bedding.

14. Aluminum Foil Ball – The most unusual laundry cleaning tip

Are you out of dryer sheets or looking for an eco-friendly solution? Wouldn’t you know it, but you can use an aluminum foil ball to replace a dryer sheet. Just ball up some aluminum foil, and toss it in with your laundry. You can reuse this over and over again. Just remember to replace the balls every three to six months at the same time as you clean your washer like in the first laundry cleaning tip!

The Ultimate Life-changing Laundry Cleaning Tips

These 14 life-changing laundry cleaning tips and tricks will allow you to get your laundry done in the most efficient way and save you money as you won’t have to replace stained clothing as often, from getting those tough stains out in a hurry to drying your clothes faster than normal. You can implement these laundry cleaning tips to save you time and money so that you can enjoy the fun things in life!

Which of these have you tried? Share how they worked for you on social media and tag us to let us know how it went!