Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Reluctant Domestic


Ah, laundry. The yardstick of my life.

As of this afternoon, all of the laundry in the house has been washed, dried, folded AND put away. Furthermore, not only did I separate out the whites, I bleached those bad boys within an inch of their thread count. Mount Washmore has been defeated! Fear the Reluctant Domestic!

But this raises a question: bleach. Necessary evil? Or just plain old evil? Whites get abused in this house. Tom swabs the ketchup spills and barbecue puddles on our counters with our white dishtowels. Cocoa dribbles, "washable" (HAHAHAHAHA) marker residue, berry stains and tomato sauce decorate most of Sarah's wardrobe. I have more than my fair share of sweat stains (thank you, Dad, for that particularly appealing genetic gift) and food, uh, mishaps.

So, bleach, right? I mean, for the whites. Except bleach sucks. (I think, but these articles are making me a little less worried about household use.) What do you guys do? Bleach? Lemon juice and sunshine? Wear only black clothing? The Reluctant Domestic needs to know.

One thing is for sure: after doing just a little reading, I'm going to make a bigger effort to use way fewer unbleached paper products. Dudes. My little cup of Clorox ain't nothing compared to what the pulp mills are churning out.

White clothes. Brown paper. I think I can live with that.

7 comments:

Susie Lubell said...

maybe rub a little ponds on that shit. ;) the whole world can be blemish free!

Grace said...

We use Seventh Generation laundry bleach, which is just hydrogen peroxide.

Of course, I'm not at all sure it has any actual effect on the laundry, but at least I'm not worried about chlorinating my kid.

Anonymous said...

Oxiclean? or is that worse and I don't know it?

SherylA

Cindy said...

I've found that like sugar and oil you can use half the bleach for basically the same effect.

Except in baking.

:)

Grace said...

True, we also use Oxyclean on the tough stuff, but isn't that just basically peroxide too?

AG Ambroult said...

Ha! I loved susie's comment about the ponds.

I use oxy clean. Soak the stuff overnight in the washer and every stain comes out. I do this, like, once a year, because that's how much i care about my family running around with stains.

Annie Joyce-Brandt said...

Ah, you have found the right person to tell you about bleach! It's me Annie, who lives across from Jenny. For years I have used bleach products in my cleaning company, but no more!We now are a "green" company and only use my homemade green products.Replace bleach with vinegar, it disinfects and cleans, add an essential oil for a fresh scent.Go to my blog www.anniescleaning.blogspot.com for further domestic info. Also, send me your email and I will give you more information.