Out Of Mana

I spent almost an entire work shift drawing this tooth-rotting fluff

Two little girls playing gently with a daddy long legs.

Girl 1: can it die?

[image ID: a screenshot of the notes on this post, featuring several people indicating they want to know more. End ID.]

OKAY SO. You know how we talk about how one way fast fashion has made itself “necessary” is that the clothing looks like shit and feels horrible after just a few washes?

Let. Me. Tell. You. Something.

Laundry stripping is a process where you load your laundry into a tub or bin (I’ve been using my bathtub) with warm water, half a cup of borax, half a cup of washing soda, and half a cup of laundry soap (not detergent, SOAP, there’s a chemical difference). Leave it there for at least eight hours. I’ve been going for 12-24.

What you will come back to is a tub full of nearly-opaque black-gray-brown water that absolutely REEKS. This is normal. You are looking at (and smelling) hard water buildup, body sweat and oils that were embedded in the fabric, dead skin, and just regular grime.

Wring out your clothes. Throw them in the washer. (I like to do a spin-only cycle before going any further, because I have one of those washers that determines by weight how much water any given load needs.) Wash as usual.

You will notice I didn’t suggest any further pretreatment, and that’s because 1) you don’t want to layer too many chemicals on top of each other but also 2) you may not even need it.

When your clothes come out, check each one as it goes into the dryer, and if anything else s still stained, set it aside to run again with a regular pretreatment. One of the sweaters I did this with apparently did need a second treatment…to deal with what appears to have possibly been a hot chocolate stain that was previously invisible due to “well, it’s old” dinginess. I was planning to throw this sweater out. It looks almost new now. I need to wash it one more time for the probably-a-hot-chocolate stain, and then it needs to have the hem weighted to block it and bring it back to evenness, but dude. I wear my clothes to rags and I thought this thing was unfixable. “I need to reshape it” is nothing.

Remove clothes from dryer when done. Fucking MARVEL at the colors and how good the fabric feels. Give them a smell. Get righteously and royally angry that you can rejuvenate this stuff so easily, with a process that does take awhile but is 90% hands-off, but we’ve been trained to believe it’s all got to be binned once a year because discoloration and gross fabric is “normal wear and tear” and can’t be fixed.

It’s utterly unreal! I just pulled a seven-year-old work undershirt out of the dryer and this thing looks NEW!! It FEELS almost new!!! One of the shirts I hung up from the last load is older than some of the people on this site and it went from “I keep this to wear on laundry day, for sentimental reasons” to “I could actually wear this out of the house, it looks old but respectable”! The pajama bottoms I’m wearing were from Goodwill and they have BRIGHT YELLOW in them! I thought it was goldenrod!!

I do not know how often you’re supposed to do this (doing it every time can strip the dye out of your clothes, not to mention it’s way too much work to do every time), but once or twice per season seems respectable. I don’t wear white, so I can’t test the “it will make whites look almost-new as well” claim, but I’ve seen a lot of people on the cleaning subreddit attest that it works.

Just remember: WASHING soda. Not baking soda. I tried baking soda and a little bit happened, but not a lot.

And sometimes I load the washer, including the detergent, and then open the lid. The laundry automatically stops itself, and I just let it sit overnight. This is great for stains (I have a 5 year old) and for clothes longevity.

It's also fragrance free (so great for many allergies), CHEAP, and Eco-friendly.

Borax is available at hardware stores - go to Bunnings and have a look around. If nothing else, it's possibly in the gardening section alongside the pesticides, because it's a cheap way of dealing with ants. I've also found it occasionally at Coles and Woolworths, but you have to check at the top and bottom of the shelves (again, look with the pesticides and similar). A sufficiently large IGA might also have it.

For soap... well, they're meaning "bar of soap", rather than detergents. See if you can order in Lux Soap Flakes at your local IGA; check out whether there's a "green products" store in your district which will supply plain old soap flakes; or save up the tail ends of bars of soap and grate them up on an ordinary grater (tip from someone who's tried this: wear something over your nose and mouth, like a surgical mask or a bandanna, or similar - soap dust is a definite sneezing hazard). If you can find Velvet Laundry Soap in the laundry aisle at the supermarket, you can grate that up and use it instead.

(Note for grating soap: the more glycerine the soap contains, the more likely it is to grate up as curls rather than powder. Don't worry, it all dissolves in warm water all the same, you just have to stir it a bit more).

Washing soda is still available from most supermarkets (I've found it at both Coles and Woolies over here, you just have to look for it in the laundry aisle - check the top and bottom shelves) - the brand that seems to be most common is "Lectric Soda". It's a white crystalline substance, can look like a powder if it's fine enough.

[image ID: a screenshot of the notes on this post, featuring several people indicating they want to know more. End ID.]

OKAY SO. You know how we talk about how one way fast fashion has made itself “necessary” is that the clothing looks like shit and feels horrible after just a few washes?

Let. Me. Tell. You. Something.

Laundry stripping is a process where you load your laundry into a tub or bin (I’ve been using my bathtub) with warm water, half a cup of borax, half a cup of washing soda, and half a cup of laundry soap (not detergent, SOAP, there’s a chemical difference). Leave it there for at least eight hours. I’ve been going for 12-24.

What you will come back to is a tub full of nearly-opaque black-gray-brown water that absolutely REEKS. This is normal. You are looking at (and smelling) hard water buildup, body sweat and oils that were embedded in the fabric, dead skin, and just regular grime.

Wring out your clothes. Throw them in the washer. (I like to do a spin-only cycle before going any further, because I have one of those washers that determines by weight how much water any given load needs.) Wash as usual.

You will notice I didn’t suggest any further pretreatment, and that’s because 1) you don’t want to layer too many chemicals on top of each other but also 2) you may not even need it.

When your clothes come out, check each one as it goes into the dryer, and if anything else s still stained, set it aside to run again with a regular pretreatment. One of the sweaters I did this with apparently did need a second treatment…to deal with what appears to have possibly been a hot chocolate stain that was previously invisible due to “well, it’s old” dinginess. I was planning to throw this sweater out. It looks almost new now. I need to wash it one more time for the probably-a-hot-chocolate stain, and then it needs to have the hem weighted to block it and bring it back to evenness, but dude. I wear my clothes to rags and I thought this thing was unfixable. “I need to reshape it” is nothing.

Remove clothes from dryer when done. Fucking MARVEL at the colors and how good the fabric feels. Give them a smell. Get righteously and royally angry that you can rejuvenate this stuff so easily, with a process that does take awhile but is 90% hands-off, but we’ve been trained to believe it’s all got to be binned once a year because discoloration and gross fabric is “normal wear and tear” and can’t be fixed.

It’s utterly unreal! I just pulled a seven-year-old work undershirt out of the dryer and this thing looks NEW!! It FEELS almost new!!! One of the shirts I hung up from the last load is older than some of the people on this site and it went from “I keep this to wear on laundry day, for sentimental reasons” to “I could actually wear this out of the house, it looks old but respectable”! The pajama bottoms I’m wearing were from Goodwill and they have BRIGHT YELLOW in them! I thought it was goldenrod!!

I do not know how often you’re supposed to do this (doing it every time can strip the dye out of your clothes, not to mention it’s way too much work to do every time), but once or twice per season seems respectable. I don’t wear white, so I can’t test the “it will make whites look almost-new as well” claim, but I’ve seen a lot of people on the cleaning subreddit attest that it works.

Just remember: WASHING soda. Not baking soda. I tried baking soda and a little bit happened, but not a lot.

And sometimes I load the washer, including the detergent, and then open the lid. The laundry automatically stops itself, and I just let it sit overnight. This is great for stains (I have a 5 year old) and for clothes longevity.

It's also fragrance free (so great for many allergies), CHEAP, and Eco-friendly.

Borax is available at hardware stores - go to Bunnings and have a look around. If nothing else, it's possibly in the gardening section alongside the pesticides, because it's a cheap way of dealing with ants. I've also found it occasionally at Coles and Woolworths, but you have to check at the top and bottom of the shelves (again, look with the pesticides and similar). A sufficiently large IGA might also have it.

For soap... well, they're meaning "bar of soap", rather than detergents. See if you can order in Lux Soap Flakes at your local IGA; check out whether there's a "green products" store in your district which will supply plain old soap flakes; or save up the tail ends of bars of soap and grate them up on an ordinary grater (tip from someone who's tried this: wear something over your nose and mouth, like a surgical mask or a bandanna, or similar - soap dust is a definite sneezing hazard). If you can find Velvet Laundry Soap in the laundry aisle at the supermarket, you can grate that up and use it instead.

(Note for grating soap: the more glycerine the soap contains, the more likely it is to grate up as curls rather than powder. Don't worry, it all dissolves in warm water all the same, you just have to stir it a bit more).

Washing soda is still available from most supermarkets (I've found it at both Coles and Woolies over here, you just have to look for it in the laundry aisle - check the top and bottom shelves) - the brand that seems to be most common is "Lectric Soda". It's a white crystalline substance, can look like a powder if it's fine enough.