Going Green: The Dirt on Laundry

Unfortunately, I did not acccomplish my goal of a big green cleaning session on Saturday night. Due to my own poor time management (aka, stayed up too late Friday night playing The Sims 3) I was dead tired by Saturday evening so it didn't go down. I did however, do my laundry! I went into the laundry with high hopes that it would be a success and it was!

First up was our bed linens. I had to wash the sheets, the quilt and our uber soft white blanket. For these I did do 2 scoops because normally I have to use the large portion of detergent and I wasn't sure what I was going to have to do with the DIY stuff. Everything came out smelling fresh, not scented, but fresh. It all passed the soft test, nothing felt scratchy and our white blanket ended up coming out REALLY bright. That was a big and pleasant surprise. Since we've had it for like 3 years now, it has become a really dull cream color. When I pulled it out of the dryer, it was fluffy, soft and really bright. I'll have to report back with how they do on the sleep test since I obviously haven't slept on them yet.

I didn't do T's uniforms in it only because I wasn't sure how it would turn out and there was NO way I was going to risk $500 in uniforms being jacked up so they got the old stuff. Everything else got the new detergent, 1 scoop each load, and so far everything seems fine. My clothes feel soft, the whites are SUPER bright. Most of my colors seem okay, but since they are all pretty faded they didn't come out nearly as bright as my whites. I'm actually wearing some of the stuff washed in the new detergent and I don't notice much of a difference which I consider to be a success. I have super sensitive skin and I'm not having an itchy feelings or such.

Eventually I would like to try switching T's uniforms to the new stuff, but I'm going to give the DIY goods a few more shots before I make the change. The only thing that is a bit of a change is the lack of smell. Normally my clothes smell like whatever detergent or dryer sheets I'm using. After being out of the dryer for a couple hours, my clothes don't smell like anything. That's a bummer just cause I got so used to that Mountain Fresh type smell, but I'm sure I'll be happier with this.

On the other DIY front, I have A LOT going on and A LOT planned. To try to keep my expenses at bay, I'm going to do a list of what tasks I want to accomplish each month and my budget for them. If I am planning something big, obviously the other small ones will have to wait, but I'll report on that later. For now, it's off to bed to test out the linens.