There are many methods of getting your laundry done. If you’re a guy, you can beg your girlfriend to do it for you. Or, can save it up to take home during a break to overwhelm your mom. Or you can learn to do it yourself!
If you live in a dorm, you’ll want to save up all the quarters you can because chances are, the washers and dryers are coin-operated. You need to purchase some laundry detergent. You don’t need anything expensive, although brands like Gain always smell nice. Liquid detergent is a little easier to work with. You can also purchase fabric softener, but the dryer sheets are the easiest to use.
First on the agenda, empty all of your pockets. Pens, money, and lipstick left in a pocket can be a recipe for disaster. Second, check the tags on clothes to make sure that you can machine wash and tumble dry. If the tags say any else, take them home at break and ask your mom for help. Third step: your clothes need to be sorted by tones and shades; darks, lights and whites. Remember to keep the load sized small to medium. If you put too many clothes in one load – not only will it stress the machine and possibly not spin out excess water during the spin cycle, your clothes will not be clean. So sorting 101 . . . jeans, dark blues, greens that sort of tone goes in one pile. Pinks, light blue, other lights go in another pile. All white go in a third pile. Sheets will usually go with whites or lights. Wait for a break to wash your comforter at home. If you veer from the advice on the sorting, you could end up with a load of pink whites or some other catastrophe. Remember, for a new article of clothing: if the colors are pretty bright, rinse it in a sink to get the color to run out of it first or it will run over all the rest of your load!
The washing machines usually have instructions written on them somewhere. If not, it’s a great way to make new friends. Many a budding romance has begun in the laundry room. Put your clothes in the washer. Pour a little less than the recommended amount of detergent over the clothes. (Again, do not try to overstuff the washer with your clothes! Bad idea. Take it from one who knows) Put your quarters in the slot, if needed. Select cold water for darks, warm for lights and hot for whites. All machines take different amounts of times to go through a wash cycle – so you if you head back to your room or out for a jog, you can be pretty sure the load will be finished within 40-50 minutes. If the laundry room is really busy, someone may remove your wet wash and throw it on top of a counter somewhere. If you forget it, it may be fair game for anyone looking for a cool new t-shirt, or it can also end up smelling really rank if it sits around wet.
After removing your spun out wet clothes from the washer you can pile them into a dryer. Some dryers take a while, so again make sure you’re back to check on your dryer within about 40 minutes. After this, you can either stuff them all back into a bag to take back to your room, or take a few minutes to chill out and fold each article of clothing and make your mother proud.
Not only will these laundry skills help you to gain independence, confidence and appeal, but you will smell good, look good and feel pretty darn good about your newly acquired skills. Good luck!
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