5 laundry hacks you wish you had known all this time

Out of all of the household chores on our list, laundry is probably one of the most frustrating ones. After all, so much can go wrong with a single load of laundry. If you’ve ever had problems with forgotten tissue paper in pockets, ink stains, wrinkles, and more; read on for five helpful laundry hacks that you wish you had known all this time.

You can use hand sanitiser to get rid of ink stains.

If you tend to leave your pens in your pockets or experience ink stains because of your kids, there is one easy solution you need to know about: hand sanitiser.

Hand sanitiser has alcohol in it that acts as a powerful solvent. All you will need is an old toothbrush and some hand sanitiser. Put some hand sanitiser on the toothbrush, scrub the ink stain for a minute or two, and wait for 10 minutes before throwing the piece of clothing in the wash. Easy peasy! If the stain doesn’t completely dissolve after doing this, just repeat the process and try again.

One Good Thing details her experience with getting rid of ink stains and mentions that hairspray works just as well (though hand sanitiser is probably more accessible). Apparently, this solution works with ink stains on clothes, jeans, and even carpets.

You can use ice cubes to eliminate wrinkles.

Don’t have enough time to iron? Are you in a hurry to smoothen out a particular shirt or a pair of pants? If you need to save time, just throw a few ice cubes into your dryer along with your wrinkled clothes and run the dryer on its hottest setting.

Doing this will melt the ice cubes into water and will eventually get hot enough and turn into steam. Along with the heat, this steam will smooth out any wrinkles on your clothes.

Lifehacker tried out this particular hack and have confirmed wrinkle-free results. Just make sure you don’t put in too many ice cubes or too many pieces of clothing in at once. Ideally, this trick should only be done with one or two pieces of clothing, as well as two or three cubes of ice.

You can use fabric softener for pieces of paper or tissue.

Have you ever finished a washing machine cycle just to open up your washing machine to see that sticky bits of paper or tissue have scattered themselves all around your clothes and the machine itself? Re-washing them won’t clean things up (we’ve tried!); in fact, it makes things even worse.

Fortunately, Japanese Twitter user @54I23 has found an easy solution for this: fabric softener. Basically, all you have to do is add some fabric softener into your washing machine after you experience this devastating problem, and voila! Your sanity and clothes are saved.

You can use salt to keep coloured clothes from running.

If you’re worried that the colours of some of your clothes will run, Lifehacker recommends using a tablespoon of salt on your laundry load. The chloride in salt can actually help protect vibrant colours, as well as keep them from fading, by sealing in their colours during each wash.

If your clothes are brand new, use half a cup of salt to stop the colours from bleeding during the first wash.

You can use lemons to brighten up your white clothes.

Are your white clothes no longer as white and as bright as they used to be? Martha Stewart herself shares the ultimate secret to reviving their brightness: lemons.

Boil some sliced lemons in a pot of water, turn off the heat, and then add your clothes into it. After leaving them to soak for an hour, wash them as usual and dry them under the sun before throwing them in your dryer. This works especially well for napkins, socks, and linens.

We hope this list will help lessen your headaches and stress the next time you face a laundry problem. Do you have any laundry hacks of your own? Share them with us!

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