Are you Washing Your Clothes Wrong? Probably.

[yogitunes]

First...let's not go there...but if you get out of the shower, and-----you know what....

bottom line, GET BACK IN THAT DAMN SHOWER AND DO IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME!

you have to be kidding me.....were talking about cleaning laundry, and your not even cleaning yourself!

I practically live in the shower during the Summer, and may use the towel two or three times.....never had concern that any area was not clean as it should be

WOW...this thought is wrong on too many levels!!!!

(just walking away and shaking my head!)unreal in todays day and age...

 

[mich]

I've always...

Thought the same. Oxygen Environment with enough Alkalinity, will kill pretty much anything. However, certain things can interfere with the washing environment, such as household cleaners (vinegar would be one) and other small things, allowing such bacteria in such load, to simply redistribute.

Don't ask me why I care, but, I've always liked Hotel Towels. Soft (from proper rinsing), and completely sanitized (boil wash temperatures, bleach rinses) and since I've discovered there "secrets" or techniques, I've practiced the same at home.

There's nothing better, than getting out of the shower, and wrapping yourself in a Nice, Soft, luxurious bath towel.

Or Maybe, I just like over-complicating things?

 

[mich]

Martin..

I'm gonna admit it, I'm different.

I like things to be completely, absolutely sanitary, as much as possible.

I hand wash pots & pans (that can't be placed in the dishwasher) in 140* Hot Water, with Antibacterial Dawn. Overboard, Maybe.

I use white dish towels, in my Kitchen, so they can be washed in my oh so wonderful, front loader with Hot Water, Tide + Bleach, and Clorox in the Dispenser. I don't keep them in use for more than 24 hours, so, there's not a chance for anything to redistribute.

Anything that can, is ran though my Kenmore UltraWash, on a Normal Cycle with a Chlorine or (if stuff is heavily soiled) Enzyme Detergent with Oxygen Bleach, with a NSF certified Rinse, to knock out anything, that detergent could possibly miss.

The Sani-Rinse also, helps dry the dishes, so it's kinda a win-win, as well.

And before I even unload my dishwasher, and fill the cabinets with my squeaky clean, sanitized plates, I wash my hands with my Green (antibacterial) Dawn, so nothing gets on them.

I like knowing, that my plates and dishes are just as clean & hygienic, as a restaurant would be. Is that wrong, or not normal?

 

[tomturbomatic]

One of the main reasons hotel towels are so soft is that they use a sour in the next to the last rinse, before the softener although some modern formulas combine the two. The acid treatment is to neutralize the alkalinity from the builders that go into the wash solution. Interestingly enough, Quaternary Ammonia has a softening effect as well as germicidal properties. There's nothing wrong with making things as clean as you want unless you are harming others to do it and it does not sound like you are doing that.

 

[stan]

Here's the dirt

On the shirt. Wine, motor oil, spaghetti sauce, mud, lipstick, olive oil.

 

[stan]

Here the surfactant used

Lye Soap

 

[stan]

The equipment

used was a Maytag. With HOT tap water.

 

[stan]

The results

I want to know what detergent with COLD water, and what machine, could have achieved this?

 

[yogitunes]

nothing wrong from my point of view

Mich

I think were both on the same page, maybe a little OCD, but I rest better at night knowing things are clean as much as possible...not just for me, but my guest as well!

if going overboard offends someone, oh well!....

I also have a policy of people walking in my house and removing their shoes, but as much as I literally scrub my floors, no one is leaving with dirty socks...nothing to worry about here!

 

[tomturbomatic]

We were trained to leave out street shoes inside the door and put on house shoes.

 

[launderess]

A Good Number of Yahoo & Similar Articles Are Written

By idiots. Few if any adhere to journalistic standards of research and so forth.

One, you cannot "STERLIZE" laundry in domestic washing machines. Sanitize and sterilize are not the same. Even laundry from commercial establishments that is required to be "sterile" is done so *after* it has been cleaned.

The number of germs that can cause disease from textiles are few, and even then they are limited to handling or otherwise coming into contact with infected/soiled linen.

E.Coli is one of the more "easy" germs to destroy via temperatures in laundry, but that requires wash baths of >160F held for at least ten minutes. Few if any domestic washing machines sold in the USA will do this, and even those that do are going to be front loaders.

In order to "sterilize" or even effectively clean a washing machine you would need to ensure the gunk/biofilm where germs/bacteria live is removed from between the tubs. That is not something a "washing machine cleaning/cleaner" is going to be able to manage. Soon as that process is over the germs that remain will simply live to fight another day. Indeed with a "cleaner" landscape they will have more room to colonize.

The late great Sudsman of Texas posted several good threads on how to "sanitize" laundry. As a commercial laundryman that processed healthcare linens he ought to have known.

 

[norgeway]

As for me..

Colors in warm, all sheets, towels, hot, all whites hot with bleach..only Clorox, I use Sears ultra detergent in an 83 Kenmore 70 washer, pretreat with shout, as for sterilizing...after clothes are dried in an automatic dryer, they are sterilized enough for me!!

 

[norgeway]

Re sanitize..

All you have to do is use a Frigidaire Filtrator dryer...if a germ can live in that heat and steam...more power to him! LOL

 

[mickeyd]

Went way out on a limb yesterday

And washed my cream colored flannel sheets in cold water in my deck installed washing machine because it's plumbed only for cold. Felt a stirring in the innards whilst doing the deed. Half excitement, half anxiety, committing a laundry sin, and going against the grain of my upbringing and a lifetime of practice.

At bedtime, when I got into the sack, I lay there, bug-eyed waiting for cooties to emerge from the flannel weave. Praise, Jesus, the cooties never came.

So then, I waited for the itching to start. Didn't. Surprisingly, I slept just fine with no macrophagic disruption, and dreamed erotically.

I probably will not do it again; it was more impulsive and daring than anything planned or deliberated.

But I do remember that the first germ studies claimed it was the detergent that kills most bacteria; they eat it and they die.

And I recall how many fatalities there were in hospitals before a French physician whose name I've forgotten, instituted hand washing between procedures. Frightening to think of it today, isn't it, that doctors used not to wash their hands.

Please do not tell anyone in my family that I washed my sheets in cold water, especially Geraldine.

OOPS~ Forgot to add: the sheets and pillow cases were sun-dried for hours, and have long heard that direct sunlight is one of the best disinfectants. So maybe that's where all the cooties and itchies went, and why our ancestors who washed their clothes in cold streams and dried them in sunlight survived.

 

[labboy]

Ignaz Semmelweis

Started handwashing in the obstetric ward....made a huge improvement with infection control

 

[stan]

Michael

Your hilarious!
Maybe the cooties are trapped in the washer. Now outside freezing to death.

 

[launderess]

Ignaz Semmelweis

Noticed that women who were delivered by midwives had less development than those by doctors. He traced the infections of childbed fever to physicians coming straight from other patients and or even dead bodies and delivering infants. His proposed solution was hand washing in a chloride of lime solution. It worked and brought cases of childbed fever and deaths down to one percent.

However then as now the medical profession was controlled by a bunch of pig-headed and stubborn men. Dr. Semmelweis and his germ theories ran directly contrary to established medical procedures and theories of the time. Dr. Semmelweis was prevailed to end his "experiments" and long story short had his medical career ruined. The poor man was committed to an asylum at age 47 where he died fourteen days after being beaten by guards.

It would take years later after other physicians including Dr. Louis Pasteur put forth an scientifically provable theory on germs that Dr. Semmelweis's work and such began to attract attention and be put into practice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

 

[NYCWriter]

Using towels more than once ...

"People use there bath towels more than once? Do they realize, that Guys, rub there, um.. (and other places) after they get out of the shower."

Um, you're drying off a squeaky CLEAN body.

What's the issue?

 

[arbilab]

Where are most infections acquired? In hospitals, where the most "scientific" germicidology is applied. If anything, this demonstrates that scientific germicidology is WORSE than just throwing everything in a tub of Tide at 120F. That is, those with advanced degrees in sanitation fail most grievously in an environment where infectious agents are most prominent.

Now tell me, when was the last time your laundry--or ANYone's--made you sick? Other than a hospital that is. Get a grip on perspective, people. There are more bacteria in your NOSE than in your undershorts after you wash them, almost no matter how you do so. All this germophobia is nothing more than conjecture, when the BEST that DEGREED people can do in an institutional environment is slide backwards toward contamination.

Honestly, if home laundry sanitation were half the issue some of us make it out, we'd all be dead by now.

 

[washman]

My point as well arbilab

I cannot for the life of me find any study anyplace that proves we're all wearing bacteria laden clothes.

That's why I put no faith in the new fangled machines that purport to sanitize your clothes with steam or scaling hot water. That is nothing more than marketing bunk which adds no useful value to a washer.

What it DOES manage to accomplish is getting the customer to overlook the cheap construction and the paltry 1 year warranty.