A Guide to Non-Toxic Laundry Stripping
With six active children at home, laundry stripping helps prevent me from tossing out smelly clothes and gives our wardrobe a second chance. Our laundry detergent is great, and yours probably is, too! Laundry stripping takes cleaning your clothes one step further and removes what regular detergent can’t.
Stripping laundry helps remove residue from detergent buildup or minerals from hard water that you can’t see or remove with traditional washing methods. It is common in cloth diapering communities but also works great on clothes that may hold on to odors, like workout gear or bedding.
How often do you need to strip laundry?
I don’t have any sort of schedule that I follow when using this technique. If I notice our sheets aren’t smelling very nice or my children tell me their gym clothes don’t smell good, I’ll assemble a pile of clothes and start the laundry stripping process.
Conventional laundry stripping works, but many require the use of powdered laundry detergent like Tide. The perfumes and harsh chemicals irritate my skin, but I love how fresh my clothes and sheets feel after stripping them. Discovering non-toxic laundry stripping was a fantastic alternative for our family. If you have sheets, towels, cloth diapers, or other stinky clothing that may have a detergent buildup and don’t smell good, non-toxic laundry stripping might be a good option!
Gather your ingredients and stinky clothes to get started, and head to your bathroom.
Here is the non-toxic laundry stripping solution:
1 Cup washing soda
1 cup baking soda
1 cup borax
Optional: 2 T sal suds– This is mostly for a nice scent more than anything else. If you don’t care about that, skip the sal suds!
Yes, you really do need baking soda and washing soda. They are different, but you can turn baking soda into washing soda if you want to skip buying it!
How to make washing soda
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and sprinkle baking soda on a cookie sheet. Place in the oven and heat for at least 30 minutes. The consistency will change from powdery to clumpy when you stir it. This change should occur after the 30-minute mark. Once that change in texture has happened, the washing soda is ready!
Laundry Stripping directions
Fill your tub at least halfway with scalding hot water. If you have a top-loading washing machine that does not lock, you can actually do this in your washer, too.
Add your laundry stripping solution to your water and stir with a wooden spoon or large utensil.
Once the tub is filled, add your stinky clothes and stir until the clothes are entirely submerged in water. Add more water if necessary.
Let clothes soak for 5-8 hours, stirring every hour or so.
Once the water has cooled, the water will look pretty unpleasant. Drain the tub and wring the clothes out, removing excess water.
Transfer clothes to your washing machine and wash them as usual. Don’t add detergent! The laundry stripping solution is plenty.
Dry as usual.
Where to buy laundry stripping ingredients
I purchased the borax and washing soda from Amazon. I tried to find them at Target but had no luck. Costco sells a 13-pound bag of baking soda for around $8, and I couldn’t find a better price than that! Lowe’s sells borax in a pinch, but the store near me didn’t carry washing soda.
How often is laundry stripping necessary?
This depends on the material of the item you want to strip. I have used this method to strip odors from our sheets, blankets, gym gear, and towels. I try to plan time around once a month to strip items, but it’s been about 2 months since I’ve actually done it.
Laundry stripping blankets, sheets, and towels
While the method doesn’t change, the length of time that items need to soak does. After stripping our towels, I was shocked at how much dirt and grime was in the water. We don’t use them for anything except drying off! To see the water get that muddy was wild. It’s nice to know this method works, though! I let the towels and sheets soak for around 6 hours and washed them as usual, and they felt so soft.
Laundry stripping gym clothes
Workout gear made from moisture-wicking material tends to hold on to odors more than any other fabric. Even after washing and drying my leggings or my son’s basketball gear, they still had an odor. It was dark brown within 10 minutes of stirring the clothing into the hot water. I immediately decided that I would need to do a second round of soaking to remove as much gunk as I possibly could. After soaking the clothes for 6 hours, I refilled the bath and started again! The water didn’t get as dark the second time, but the water was still pretty gross. I washed as usual, and the clothes had no odor after drying.
After 5 hours of soaking. Look at how gross the water is!
Does laundry stripping work?
The proof is in the disgusting water! Yes, laundry stripping does actually work. It removed trapped odors and detergent build-up, leaving our clothes, towels, and sheets fresher and softer.
This cleaning method doesn’t necessarily make clothes look cleaner, but removing odors is half the battle. Having a way to remove odors and keep our clothes feeling clean without relying on heavy perfumes is fantastic.
Final thoughts
Laundry stripping is a fantastic way to freshen clothing, bedding, and other items around the house. With this non-toxic version of laundry stripping, you can avoid harsh perfumes and remove build-up and odors from your clothing.
Let me know in the comments below if you try this, and click here to pin this post to your favorite board on Pinterest!
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