Everyone loves clean clothes but no one wants to fold and put them away, right?!  Today I’m going to go through some of my favorite tips and products for laundry with the hope that it helps you share a little love for laundry with me.  I talk about laundry a lot on the blog and it’s because I find that there are so many of my readers that are overwhelmed with how to get it done quickly and are sick of having a laundry chair (you know, a chair covered in laundry that needs to be put away).  Today’s post will link to quite a few laundry posts but in reality I’ve written hundreds – we won’t go all the way back 🙂  You might see the evolution of our laundry room in the process too – fun stuff.

GET OTHERS INVOLVED

  • Much easier said than done, getting others involved is critical to making laundry easier. Even little ones can help by pairing up socks and putting socks and undies in drawers. As kids get older, they can put away folded clothes and then they can fold and put away their own clothes.
  • Only buy one type of sock and put them in a basket instead of pairing up and folding. Choose a brand and stock up when they’re on sale. If all the socks are identical (my favorite is just white sport socks) then they can be tossed in a basket or drawer without folding and sorting.

MINIMIZE THE LAUNDRY PROCESS

  • Wash every day clothes on cold to keep sorting and separating at a minimum.
  • Need to catch up on laundry quickly?  Here’s my method.
  • Use this method for hanging shirts.
  • Have less clothing – less clothing is less washing.  Keep an eye on this as seasons change – this is a great time to sort and purge extra clothing, especially for the little ones.
  • Only wash clothing when it’s dirty – a sweater, sweatshirt or jeans can most likely be worn more than once before it’s put in the wash.

ONE LOAD A DAY

  • My favorite laundry tip of all time – do at least one load of laundry from start to finish, (washed, dried, folded, and put away) every single day. I know that this might sound daunting at first, but doing a little bit every day is easier (for me) than doing all the laundry on one day. I get easily overwhelmed and if I do all the laundry on one day it will just end up in baskets, unfolded and not put away.
  • I recommend doing a load of laundry every day and with three kids in sports, some days it’s more like 2 loads of laundry every day.  You might not need to do laundry every day – this post Laundry Day vs Laundry Every Day shares my recommendation for how to tackle both methods quickly and in the shortest amount of time.

Laundry Room Tour

Want to see what my laundry room looks like?  Go to this post.  I’ve added a couple things since then, you can see what’s new in this post.

DIY Recipes for Laundry

My secret to white laundry? Oxygen Whitener!
Laundry Scent Booster  – like those scent boosters but safe!
Vinegar as a Fabric Softener – yes, please! This is my secret to soft and fluffy towels.
Ditch the Dryer Sheets – they’re horrible for you!  Check out what I use instead.
4 Ways to Soften Laundry – use one or all of them!
How to Keep Your Washing Machine from Smelling 
How to Naturally Clean Any Washing Machine + Free Printable
DIY Laundry Detergent recipe.  I haven’t mixed this up in awhile but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work – give it a try if you want to DIY your laundry soap.

You can also find these recipes in my books Clean Mama’s Guide to a Healthy Home, Simply Clean, and The Organically Clean Home.

You can see my favorite products for LAUNDRY here on my Cleaning Faves page.  You’ll see my Amazon faves and Clean Mama Home at the bottom of the page.  Keep your eye out for some new Clean Mama Home laundry products – I cannot wait to share them with you in the next couple months!

Favorite Laundry Baskets + Hampers

Laundry baskets and hampers that work for you are important – I’ve linked up some of my favorites below:

I hope this helps clear up some questions and gives you some ideas of methods and products that work!