I received the following from my boss (thanks, Adrianne) and it really made me stop and think how far we have come. I remember my grandmother detailing her washing process and parts of the following were included.

Maybe "the good ole days" were not really "the good ole days".

Washing Clothes Recipe

(Given a Young Bride by her Grandmother)

'Washing Clothes Recipe' - imagine having a recipe for this!

Years ago, a Southern grandmother gave the new bride the following recipe: This is an exact copy as written and found in an old scrapbook - with spelling errors and all.

Washing Clothes

Build fire in backyard to heat kettle of rain water. Set tubs so smoke wont blow in eyes if wind is pert. Shave one whole cake of lye soap in boilin water.

Sort things, make 3 piles

     1 pile white,
     1 pile colored,
     1 pile work britches and rags.

To make starch, stir flour in cool water to smooth, then thin down with boiling water.

Take white things, rub dirty spots on board, scrub hard, and boil, then rub colored don't boil just wrench and starch.

Take things out of kettle with broom stick handle, then wrench, and starch.

Hang old rags on fence.

Spread tea towels on grass.

Pore wrench water in flower bed. Scrub porch with hot soapy water.

Turn tubs upside down.

Go put on clean dress, smooth hair with hair combs. Brew cup of tea, sit and rock a spell and count your blessings.

(For you non-Southerners... wrench means rinse.)

Paste this over your washer and dryer. Next time when you think things are bleak, read it again, kiss that washer and dryer, and give thanks. First thing each morning you should run and hug your washer and dryer.

And finally, a cute joke to finish off the post...

One day my housework-challenged husband decided to wash his sweatshirt. Seconds after he stepped into the laundry room, he shouted to me, "What setting do I use on the washing machine?"

"It depends," I replied. What does it say on your shirt?"

He yelled back, "University of Oklahoma..."

And they say blondes are dumb!

As we’re in full swing of holiday season, it is tough to find the time to clean house! You should be all caught up from the Thanksgiving laundry. Luckily, doing a top-to-bottom home cleaning may not be needed but you should always concentrate on a handful of spots that contain the most germs. Over the years, my company has done a lot of research that showed the following five areas are the germiest places in the home. Using our Basic Bleach Solution* is a great way to tackle these problem areas. Specific approaches for each area:

Plastic Cutting Boards – The place where raw meat, chicken and fish often touch. If not cleaned properly, cutting boards can serve as breeding grounds for salmonella, E. coli, and other nasty germs. Soaking in the sink with the basic Clorox® Regular-Bleach solution* for 5 minutes, then rinse and dry will do the trick to get rid of the bad stuff.

Kitchen Sponges – Scary fact: the average kitchen sponge carries 7.2 billion bacteria! Sanitizing kitchen sponges can fight harmful food-borne bacteria. Soak kitchen sponges in the basic Clorox® Regular-Bleach solution* for 5 minutes daily, wring them out and they’re ready for action again.

Kitchen Sink Drain – Between all the food preparation and cleanup that pass through here, it is no wonder the kitchen sink drain makes this list. It’s the perfect breeding grounds for common household bacteria that can thrive for days in your drain. After you have cleaned out the sink with the basic Clorox® Regular-Bleach solution*, pour 1 cup of Clorox® Regular-Bleach down the drain to kill germs and control odors.

Kitchen Faucet Handles – It would make sense that faucet handles would make this list as they one of the most frequently touched areas—and most overlooked for cleaning—in the kitchen. It should be cleaned at least three times per week. Simply wipe the handles using the basic Clorox® Regular-Bleach solution* to help finish the kitchen cleaning.

Bathroom sink drains – Like the kitchen sink drain, the bathroom sink drain needs to be cleaned at least weekly. Use the same procedure; After you have cleaned out the sink with the basic Clorox® Regular-Bleach solution*, pour 1 cup of Clorox® Regular-Bleach down the drain to kill germs and control odors.

Keeping in front of those pesky germs is important to help break the cycle of germ transmission. Following these tips will certainly help you do that successfully.

*The Clorox® Regular-Bleach solution is 3/4 cup of Clorox® Regular-Bleach diluted in one gallon of water.

As the holiday season kicks off, so do the big family dinners and the arrival of important house guests. If you're like me, you love the festivities, but dread the aftermath - stained linens, cranberry and gravy-spotted shirts. Well, once again my holiday hotline is up and running for those of you who could use a little help tackling the post-party messes. You can get quick tips on removing the seasonal stains, from red wine splashes, to pumpkin smears on my toll-free

Holiday Stain Hotline: 1-877-Stain-411
(1 877 782 4641)

Here’s a couple of quick tips to get you rolling....

• Deal with the stain as soon as you can; the sooner you get to it, the greater the chance the stain will come out.


• Blot up as much of the stain as possible; try not to rub and force more stain into the fabric. Removing a little is much easier than trying to remove a lot.


• Pre-soaking or pre-treating the stain for 10-30 minutes before washing will jumpstart stain removal. Make sure you’re using the right product for the type of stain. Check my removal procedures on the hotline.

A couple of our products that should come in handy over the holiday…

• You can also use Clorox® UltimateCare™ Premium Bleach – a unique bleach that can be poured directly on to bleachable fabrics; as a bonus, this powerful stain and soil remover has a terrific fresh Soft Cotton scent.


• I love the Clorox® Bleach Pen Gel. It has 2 tips to help control the bleach and get it exactly where you want it.

Remember every stain is treated differently, so feel free to write in and ask me about your specific questions.

I hope you all enjoy a healthy, happy, stain-free Holiday season!

It’s about that time again, and I can almost smell the turkey cooking! Thanksgiving is a holiday full of family, friends, fun and plenty of yummy foods and drinks. However, before the festivities comes all the holiday preparations, and that can lead to feelings of chaos. It can be so stressful preparing everything for guests around the home. The holiday rush always seems to lead to sloppy spills and stains, and while I’m happy to offer clean-up solutions for these messes, it’s also a good idea to slow down and possibly prevent careless spills before they happen.

Remember, the holidays are just days, not weeks or months. If you’re feeling the holiday stress, make sure you take some time out for yourself so you don’t feel overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle and end up with a greasy gravy stain on your favorite khaki pants or cranberry sauce on your nice white couch. Don’t be afraid to share the preparation responsibilities with your kids and family and enlist the help of your guests. I personally love to volunteer for kitchen and set-up duty because I find it a great way to get caught up with people we don’t see very often.

As for those unavoidable messes and spills, here are my recommendations for products you can use to make sure your Thanksgiving celebration happens without a hitch.

• Clorox has a great lineup of products to get your home clean and sparkling for your guests. From general cleaning with Formula 409® and Pine-Sol® to tough messes with Clorox® Clean-Up™ spray cleaner, you will be getting the job done quick and complete.


• For accidents in the kitchen, keep a supply of Clorox® Disinfecting Wipes on hand to clean up after food spills and prevent the spread of bacteria on your countertops.


• Got a stain on your stripe shirt or blouse? Grab a Clorox® Bleach Pen™ and bleach the spot and into the wash it goes!


• To remove a red wine stain from clothing or table cloths, rinse the stain immediately in cold water and pre-treat with Clorox 2® Bleach for Colors, or our newest product, Clorox® UltimateCare™ Premium Bleach and then into the washer they go. Remember, fresh stains are much easier to remove than old ones!


• If children will be present at your party, use Clorox® Anywhere Hard Surface™ which is gentle enough to use around kids and food, but powerful enough to kill 99.9 % of bacteria on those hard surfaces.


• For a spill on your hardwood floor, grab a Clorox® ReadyMop® to quickly clean your floors so you can get back to enjoying your party.

Stay tuned for more Turkey Day stain removal secrets that will make you thankful for Clorox!

With the cold and flu season starting up, everyone starts asking germ questions. A familiar one is about germs in the laundry; what’s killed and what’s left. So I pulled out some published research that I thought would be helpful.

The best was a study conducted by Dr Chuck Gerba at the University of Arizona and presented at an American Society of Microbiologists meeting. He asks: What happens to the bacteria in laundry when it’s washed? To answer it, he swabbed the insides of 100 washers in Arizona and Florida to identify if they contained residual “bugs”. Are you ready? He found more than 60 percent of the machines tested positive for coliform bacteria, an indicator of fecal contamination. Another 20 percent contained staph. Dr. Gerba also confirmed the laundry bacteria is primarily from underwear, but also included bacteria often found in dishcloths and sponges.
Next he looked at what happens to bacteria during washing and drying. He used three different illness-causing bacteria for his tests: E. coli, Salmonella, and another common bacteria that causes skin infections (Mycobacterium fortuitium).

Simulating typical home-laundry practices using warm water washes, the researchers observed that after washing, bacterial contamination was found throughout the clothing and on the machine tub itself. The bacteria left behind even showed up in subsequent washloads. Oh my!!

Even more surprising, the heat from the dryer did not kill all the bacteria. The E. coli was eliminated, but the other two bacteria, although reduced, were still present. Drying times included 23-minute permanent press cycles and 43-minute cotton settings.

Equally concerning, your hands and the top of the washer and dryer come in contact with those germs as wet clothes are transferred from washer to dryer.

So a quick summary:

• Over ¾ of the washers had bacteria happily living in them and waiting for the next washload


• Most of the bacteria was from underwear


• Washing in warm water spread the bacteria to the rest of that load AND then left some behind for the next load


• You help spread the bacteria by touching/handling the wet laundry


• Dryer heat wasn’t enough to kill everything.

CONTROL GERMS BY:

• Using the hottest water for the items


• Using Clorox ® Regular-Bleach where possible on your underwear loads; it kills 99.99% of those bacteria and viruses


• Always do the bleach load first


• If you don’t use liquid bleach, then first run an empty wash cycle with liquid bleach and cold water to sanitize the machine


• Always wash your hands after sorting laundry for washer or transferring wet laundry to dryer.


• Wipe off surface of washer and dryer with a disinfectant wipe

Please follow these easy tips to help control the spread of bacteria, cold and flu viruses.

WANTED: Your Laundromat Horror Stories!!

Ok, next week is Halloween and for some adult fun, I thought we might solicit some reader input that combines scary and laundry. Thus, our SCARY LAUNDROMAT STORIES CONTEST. It seems everyone who does their laundry in public has had uncomfortable experiences. Has something horrifying ever happened to you at a laundromat? I’d love to hear your scary stories of laundry disasters and terrifying tales from your Laundromat. Please submit your laundromat horror stories as a comment to www.DrLaundryBlog.com.

Need some ideas to stimulate your story telling??

• Unusual guests (human and animal) at the Laundromat


• Unbelievable things being washed by others in the machine you have to use


• Unusual items found in washers and/or dryers


• Unexpected laundering results


• Surprises in the laundry you took home


• Most unusual smell/odors encountered


• Why I rushed out and bought a washer/dryer so I never have to return to that place again

OK, now get started and enter often! I will award prizes for the best stories.
Let's see what America encounters at the Laundromat...

The American and National League are whittling down their teams to determine who will be moving on to the World Series. This brought to mind an interesting piece of baseball uniform research that my friend Bill recently sent to me. Nothing it seems is too trivial to try and gain a competitive advantage in Japan.

This research was reported in Textile Research Journal, Vol. 76, No. 5, 383-387 (2006). The research abstract follows:

Effects of Moisture Absorption of Clothing on Pitching Speed of Amateur Baseball Players in Hot Environmental Conditions

Shin-Jung Park -Department of Fashion Design, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul 110-745, Korea, sjpark[at]skku[dot]edu

Hiromi Tokura -Institute of Textiles and Clothing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Mitsuo Sobajima -Textile Division, Nisshinbo Industries, Inc. Aichi 444-8510, Japan

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the hygroscopic properties of clothing material on pitching speed and some physiological responses in amateur baseball players. The experiments were performed on four male players of a regular high school baseball team and comprised two clothing types with different moisture absorption properties, namely, cotton (Type C) and polyester and polypropylene (Type P). One test session was conducted with seven innings, with a 5-minute rest time between each inning. During each inning the test subject pitched 20 balls with a 20-second interval between each pitch. From the results, in the hot environments, the trained baseball players tended to pitch balls with higher speed and less deviation of speed when wearing Type C clothing, especially in the second session. Type C clothing with a higher moisture regain compared to Type P clothing may have diminished accumulated thermal induced fatigue in the subjects.

• cotton and polyester moisture absorption


• pitching speed


• rectal temperature


• salivary lactic acid

So if you’re a pitcher, you might want to consider retaining the cotton jersey to keep that mph up on the old heater. Or make sure your opponent is wearing polyester!

Autumn is here; a season of cooler weather and falling leaves (some parts of the country more than others, of course). In fact, I was up in Lake Tahoe last weekend and even encountered the first snow of the season!

As we are all acutely aware, autumn is unfortunately also the start of flu season, and so I wanted to touch on a few things Clorox is doing this year to help ward off these cold and flu viruses. We’ve partnered with Families Fighting Flu, an organization made up of families who have lost a loved one to the flu, and the Visiting Nurse Association to launch a national campaign to raise awareness about giving flu vaccinations to children under 5. Getting vaccinated isn’t just for kids though, I’m going to get my flu shot next week. Even Dr. Laundry has to be wary of this nasty flu bug!

The flu is an easy-to-spread viral infection with symptoms including high fever, chills, cough, aches, and fatigue. Simply coughing or sneezing can spread the flu virus. For most, the flu is uncomfortable and inconvenient; but for some, it’s worse than that. Unfortunately, it took a horrific tragedy to bring attention to the seriousness of the flu virus. Richard Kanowitz, the founder of Families Fighting Flu, experienced this first-hand: In 2004, his four-year-old daughter Amanda died suddenly from complications due to the flu. He started the organization to fight back against this virus and hopefully prevent any further tragedies.

Throughout October and November, the Visiting Nurse Association will be administering flu vaccines and distributing prevention tips to children and their parents during Say “Boo!” to the Flu events across the nation. Please look for and take advantage of this great program.

Flu season doesn’t have much to do with laundry, but since this is such a great cause – I wanted to make sure you all heard about it. Here are a few tips you can use this season to stay healthy, and check out www.sayboototheflu.com for more information:

• Sing & Scrub: Wash your hands frequently with warm water and soap for at least 20 seconds, the same amount of time it takes to sing the “Happy Birthday” song twice.


• Do the Elbow Cough: Teach your kids to cough into their elbows, not their hands where they are much more likely to spread bacteria and viruses through touch.


• Disinfect Hot Spots: In a mere 30 minutes, people can touch up to 300 different surfaces. From doorknobs and light switches, to faucets and toys, be sure to clean these frequently touched “hot spots” with Clorox Disinfecting Wipes to kill flu viruses.


• Follow Good Health Guidelines: Throughout this flu season, be sure to eat right, exercise, and get plenty of sleep to boost your body’s immune system and its ability to ward off the effects of the flu.

I received a smart question from a reader this week and thought I’d address it. Thanks for sending Sean!

The question was in response to my last entry on body soil. With the coldwater detergents on the market these days, there’s often a balance between energy savings vs. cleaning power since the detergent mitigates coldwater instead of the hottest water recommended for the fabric.

My experience has always shown when washing, the warmer the temperature the better for stain/soil removal and cleaning.

Overall laundry performance always goes from (best) HOT > WARM > COLD (poorest).

My recommendation is to use the warmest water listed on the fabric care label. Detergent manufacturers have some flexibility in changing formula ingredients to improve performance under specific conditions. However, there is no way for these chemical changes to make up for the decrease in performance when dropping the wash temperature. In fact, laundry tests that I ran showed using coldwater detergent in warm water gave significantly better performance than when used in cold water. This is true with all detergents I have tested.

Due to the large amount of oily components in body soil, one should strongly consider washing in hot water to get the best removal possible. Even better, add some Clorox Regular-Bleach with the detergent to kick the performance up another notch. Look at those microscope images from the last post to see the difference.

Adding Regular Bleach can make up for a lot of the drop in overall detergent cleaning power. However, even this great laundry additive can not increase performance to the point that washing in cold water with Regular Bleach would have the same performance as washing in hot water.

There’s one final fact to consider. Not all items are equally soiled. So, a compromise is in order. Consider bumping up the wash temperature and adding Regular Bleach for loads with sheets and underwear. For the rest of your everyday items, wash them in the cool water if they look clean. Another tip, consider using or adding a small amount of powdered detergent. Powdered detergents always clean better than liquids due to the ingredients used. If you follow this approach, ALWAYS be sure the powder is dissolved before adding the clothes to the washer. The name-brand powder detergents have gotten better at dissolving in recent years. A couple of ways to do this: start with hot water setting, add powder as machine fills, swirl agitator until water level reaches 1/4-1/3 of agitator fin height, then switch setting to cold and then start adding clothes. If using combo liquid/powder, start with hot water setting, first add powder with liquid detergent as the machine fills, swirl agitator until water level reaches 1/4-1/3 of agitator fin height, then switch setting to cold and then start adding clothes.

This is a little extra effort, but the boost in performance and absence of powder spots when you pull them from the dryer will be worth it.

Let me know how this works if you’ve tried the coldwater detergents.

A quick review of body soil:

• Everybody has it and everybody is going to deposit it onto a lot of the things you use everyday


• How much you deposit can vary but an average person produces ~50grams of body soil/day


• This stuff can be a real feast for bacteria, germs and even dust mites


• Not removing it can have some rather unpleasant side effects

Here’s some other interesting factoids. Most consumers are spurred to take action when they see a visible stain on their clothes. Yet, it’s estimated that 75% of soil in the washing machine is INVISIBLE. Body soil accounts for most of that number. It’s also estimated that over 60% of the laundry you wash has touched your body. Lots of body soil transfer opportunities.

Want to see what body soil looks like up close and personal? Below are three SEMs (Scanning Electron Micrographs) of some bedding that I received from employees. A SEM allows one to zoom in (3000X) for close-up detail down to the individual fiber level (check the lower right hand corner). Notice how the unwashed specimen has lots of coated and stuck on yuck. After washing in the leading detergent, a fair amount is gone, but one still sees rough parts to the fibers indicating the soil has not been removed. Finally, compare the sheet washed in the leading detergent and ¾ cup of Clorox Regular Bleach (CLB). Now that’s what I want to be sleeping on. They just look cleaner and remember they are also disinfected.

From these pictures, I hope you are convinced that washing with just detergent is NOT enough to get things clean. The good news is that using detergent and Clorox Regular Bleach together in every bleachable load can remove body soil that detergent may leave behind. Not to get too scientific here, but this works because bleach reacts with and breaks down body soil components into smaller, water-soluble particles, making them easier for detergent to remove. These smaller particles are easier to keep suspended in your wash water, helping to prevent body soil from landing back on your now clean clothes.

A couple of extra tips to maximize your body soil removal:

• Use a good detergent and the recommended amount. Skimping may cost you cleaning power.


• Consider a powdered detergent. They actually clean better than liquids. Make sure you get the powder dissolved to avoid appearance issues when finished.


• Use the hottest water recommended for the item being washed. Hot water cleans better! If you are being energy conscious, use warm water and consider extending the wash cycle time or presoaking for a few minutes before starting the wash.


• Don’t be afraid to check some of those colored items to see if they are bleachable. Try the simple bleachability test (see the sidebar of the blog) on an inconspicuous portion of the item. You might be surprised how many things are bleachable and they will thank you for being soo much cleaner (just kidding).