Detox Your Laundry Room & other cleaning tips

This post contains affiliate links

Here’s a little sneak peek into my laundry room and what I do to keep our clothes smelling fresh as well as stain and static-free!

One of the first offenders I had to get rid of was fragrance. I used to be obsessed with my clothes smelling like a spring valley full of clouds. They just weren’t clean unless they smelled good, right? But, when I started learning more about how much those synthetic fragrances were affecting my body as well as contributing to the weird skin rashes I was experiencing, I had to break up! It’s tough to go from a heavily scented basket of warm laundry out of the dryer, to them smelling like basically nothing. It’s also even harder to find natural, non-toxic products that actually work. So this is after lots of trial and error and years of finding the combo that gives me the results I want when I am folding a clean basket of laundry! While I LOVE Humble Suds (and have for years), it’s okay if Humble Suds is not your jam or if you prefer to find something local to you. I also list a few other reputable brands at the bottom of this article.

Some other ingredients I don’t want in my clothes are Sodium Lauryl Sulfates (yes, in clothes it can still irritate the skin like it does when it’s in personal care products). 1,4 Dioxane is found in 2/3rds of regular detergents and is a known carcinogen (just think about when you dry your clothes and those chemicals get heated and become airborne – gross). Then there are the formaldehydes, phosphates, and bleaches that add their essence of chemicals to the average household’s laundry routine and we have to do better.

WHAT I DO:

STAINS – Tough stains are pretreated and soaked in warm water with about a tablespoon or two of Humble Suds Illuminate Oxygen+ Mineral Boost Powder. For blood or other protein-based stains that are still damp, I love to pour some hydrogen peroxide directly on the stain and let it soak in for a little bit. I find if I don’t pretreat and soak, I may have to wash things twice, but if I pretreat all my stained clothes while a load is going, by the time that load is done, my stains are good to be washed out. Some super tough stains, like tomato sauce on light-colored fabric, may require an overnight soak. Don’t be afraid to apply some friction by rubbing the pieces of cloth surrounding the stain for extra stubborn stains. Even a little drizzle of unscented dish soap works really well as a pre-stain treatment.

WASHING – For more soiled synthetic athletic apparel clothes I will do a simple overnight pre-soak with the same Illuminate Oxygen + Mineral Boost Powder as shared above for stains. For everything else, just a scoop of the Laundry Powder from Humble Suds in a normal washing cycle works great! They have both scented (Sweet Orange + Lemongrass) and unscented.

DRYING – Instead of dryer sheets (which are not healthy for a multitude of reasons) we use wool dryer balls to help with static cling and fluff. I will sometimes add a few drops of a favorite essential oil blend to the balls to give the clothes a slight essence of smell – allow the drops to soak into the balls before tossing them into the dryer.

Need extra static reduction or want softer clothes? Add some white vinegar to the rinse cycle of your laundry (I just put it in the softener dispenser of my washing machine).

Planet-friendly laundry add-on: buy a few Guppy Friend Washing Bags to keep the lint and microfibers from your athletic apparel from making it into the waterways, where it contributes to plastic pollution – yes, most of our yoga apparel is basically plastic!

A few other brands that I know are also working hard to create healthier products for the marketplace.