Comments on: The Great American Soap-off (aka the laundry time-suck) https://lauravanderkam.com/2010/01/the-great-american-soap-off-aka-the-laundry-time-suck/ Writer, Author, Speaker Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:46:15 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 By: NancyV908 https://lauravanderkam.com/2010/01/the-great-american-soap-off-aka-the-laundry-time-suck/#comment-18728 Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:46:15 +0000 http://www.my168hours.com/blog/?p=207#comment-18728 Thanks for this post. I personally do not mind laundry, but I do mind all the excess loads that get done, for the reasons you outline, but also for environmental reasons: the energy wasted, the extra chemicals going into waterways. We rewear a lot of clothes in our house too. Young kids don’t really sweat, & mine are wearing undershirts these days anyway, so their shirts are usually OK. Unless they sit in mud, I usually can get a few wears out of their pants too. Like you, I am willing to have kids wear somewhat dirty clothes more than once–a littlte stain from milk that fell off their spoon at breakfast doesn’t bother me. If my own stuff passes the sniff test, I wear it again too. I think airing clothes out a bit after wearing helps. The key, as you say, is to have plenty of underwear, and socks.

I think habit induces people to wash a lot, but I know one mother who washes clothes every day b/c she figures they’re all germy from school. (I don’t even wash my kids every day, so obviously I’m not in that camp.)

Then there’s overfolding! I only fold what I need to. Socks (mostly unsorted), underwear, pajamas–forget it, they just get smooshed into a drawer. I save a lot of time that way. And I do not iron. Ever.

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