Too few people today have any notion of how clothing gets washed. They think there is some magic electric box into which you pour detergent and it magically comes out clean and ready for the second magic box called a dryer. These are all relatively new contraptions. In the before times, people knew how to wash clothes and they did a darn good job of it.
You can do the same in your own home. You only need a bathtub, a washboard (wood or plastic), some key ingredients, and some elbow grease. What is the point of this? To discover how to do something. You never know when you might need the skill. The electricity goes out. You might find yourself in a hotel with soiled laundry. Your machine might break and you need to do a wash anyway.
In any case, there is some virtue with just knowing how to do something. You might discover that you like it better, as I have. I use the bathtub to wash all sorts of things and do a better job than my machine.
Doing it this way allows for far more precision on stains, for example. The washing machine is not intelligent. Why put all your clothes through the trauma of endless grinding and blasting when a gentle wash will do for most of the fabric while only certain areas need special attention?
Before you start, you should treat the stains. Forget the store-bought sprays. They don’t work, for whatever reason I cannot figure out, whereas I think they used to. Something has changed. Regardless, you can deal with any stain with household items you should have anyway.
For oil and dirt on collars and cuffs, and such like, you can apply detergent directly and rub it in. The best approach I’ve found is to use baking soda. Wet the area and then sprinkle a generous amount. It is coarse and dissolves and has a magic effect on stains. The results are shockingly clean.
For a wonderful boiling effect that is very safe, try a mix of vinegar and baking soda. No dirt can survive that.
For blood or red wine, the combination of soap plus hydrogen peroxide is the answer. I’ve seen a white tablecloth with half a bottle spilled on it come clean with no problems at all.
Doing it this way saves you money too because all these things are very cheap. You should have them around in abundance in any case. Water and white vinegar are the best glass cleaner hands down; all other products are inferior by comparison.
Once you have prepared your laundry, start with a clean tub. It’s a huge error not to do so because you end up transferring grime from one thing to another. Remember that sorting still matters. Whites should be with whites and colors with colors. Obvious but still needs to be said.
Plug the drain and turn on the hottest water you have available. Add a bit of detergent, some trisodium phosphate (all detergents used to have that in them until government regulations forcibly removed it), and some bluing for whites. Make sure the bluing completely dissolves and doesn’t get directly on the clothing. Also I like to add a cup of white vinegar just because I’m so impressed with the stuff.
Once the water starts filling up, you can toss in your clothing and mix it all around. Turn it off when the water gets high. You can now forget about it and let it soak for 20-30 or so minutes or until the water cools and is merely warm to the touch.
Here is when you do your washing. Pick up each item and rub where the dirt is. I use a plastic washboard that I keep on the side of the tub. These things are absolutely wonderful for removing stains and generally agitating the clothing. This stage should take anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes.
Once that is complete, you are ready to pull the plug and let the dirty water drain away. Press the clothing against the side of the tub to get rid of excess dirty water. Now you can add warm or cold water for your first rinse. Move the clothing around and you should see a film of leftover soap particles float to the top.
Repeat this step one more time because two rinses are necessary, I’ve found. With each rinse, you wash away loosened dirt and grime. Once that second rinse is complete, it’s time for removing the clothing one piece at a time. With each thing, it needs to be wrung out as thoroughly as possible.
With large items like sheets, tablecloths, and towels, I find it helpful to press the items against the wall of the tub to get as much water out as possible.
Once that is down, it is time for a good hang dry. Ideally you do this outside on a line. If you have that, great. If not, you can rig one up on a porch or an area of the house near a window. There is no disinfectant to compare with the glorious sun. It naturally bleaches (speaking of which: never use it, ever; it destroys clothing).
If you are in a hotel, you can find somewhere to hang things, even if it means raiding the closet for hangers. Most clothing will dry overnight in a well-ventilated room. Otherwise, a few hours are enough to dry clothes outside.
Machine dryers are brutal on all clothing and should be avoided if at all possible. It’s a perfect path to reducing the longevity of clothing by half or more. Cursed machines, really.
I feel certain that you will like the results far more than if you had done all this in a machine. Plus, there is the added benefit of learning how it comes to be that clothing gets clean. It’s a do-it-yourself project that pays extremely high returns.
Not everyone likes this kind of work but I find it personally very therapeutic. I simply love doing it because it is completely different from my normal work. Plus I’m a fanatic for really clean clothes, as are people in most parts of the world.
When I was in Mexico City, I was stunned at the incredible cleanliness of the sheets and towels. This is probably due to hand washing and sun drying or maybe they just have old-fashioned washing machines that use more and hotter water.
Regardless, we have been gradually socialized for decades into putting up with dingier and dingier clothes because our machines have shrunk so much and our detergents have become so degraded. Americans don’t even know what clean means anymore.
The best way to fix this problem is to return to basics: a tub and a washboard. I find the process so thrilling that I gladly take home the linens from a dinner party—I offer—and put them through the process just to show what can be accomplished by a man and a tub. Tucker’s Laundry Service: has a good ring to it.
