Top Laundry Mistakes and How to Do Laundry Better

As a mom of 5 with a 6th on the way, I am here to tell you, I do a lot of laundry!

I am passionate about helping women do better laundry, because we will be doing laundry the rest of our lives, doing it well saves us so much money and time, and doing it in a healthier way has way more impact on our health than we can imagine!

Top Mistakes Most Make with Laundry

You might be thinking, Lana it is just laundry can you really mess it up that bad?

I hear you, but just making some small tweaks can save your favorite top, keep you from buying so many kids clothes, and just make laundry wayyy more manageable.

1. Doing too much laundry at a time (and not working to completion)

I know the pile might be big and you might feel tempted to go crazy and do 6 loads one day, but the likelihood of getting it all PUT AWAY is so low.

And really that is just swapping one pile for another pile. In the end, our brain still sees unfinished work.

What is really and truly better is to bite off a smaller portion-one or two loads and just work that to completion!

We will get way more momentum from that small, but consistent action each day.

You can go ahead and load the washer for tomorrow’s load, but not starting any laundry after 3 pm has been a good rule of thumb for me.

Otherwise, I am just asking to have a stinky load the next morning that just has to be rewashed anyways.

2. Too many clothes (don’t feel pain of laundry backup right away)

Believe it or not keeping the number of clothes to a minimum is a BIG HACK for keeping laundry going smooth.

When you run out of underwear or your kiddo has no more shirts to wear, it will help you have some urgency to do a doable portion of laundry daily.

The same goes with bath towels. We can just have too many backups and then there is clean and dirty towels and clothes everyone.

Every piece of clothing, sock, towel etc is just another item we have to manage and keep clean in our home.

Keeping a lower, but curated inventory just making the managing and cleaning of all the items way more doable.

I think about it like asking a small child to pick up 1,000 legos vs. 50 legos.

The brain just has way less stress response to the task and the same goes for laundry.

Here is a post that can help you majorly declutter all the closets for your family and get at the root of most of our laundry problems-too many clothes to manage!

3. Ruin clothes by doing laundry wrong

Fun facts, I used to do the laundry for the University of Tennessee softball team as a graduate assistant.

I had to make sure the white uniforms stayed white. And this was my first introduction to doing laundry right and wrong.

Stain Removal

If you want stains to come out the best strategy is to tackle them as soon as you can and to never put heat on a stain.

Heating stains binds the stain to the fabrics. Instead treat the stain with a stain remover and always wash on cold. And then air dry if possible to give yourself to try the process again if needed.

Air drying allows you the opportunity to work on the stain more if the stain didn’t come out with the first wash.

But once you throw that clothing into the dryer you have really lost your best shot of getting a stain.

Here are some great options for stain removers:

Strongest, but Not the Healthiest:

I do use Oxi-Clean spray to tackle those really tough stains.

The stain remover we used when I did college softball laundry was so strong that it would burn your skin, so I know a strong stain remover is just needed at times, but Oxi-Clean has a D rating on the EWG site.

Believe it or not, what we use in our laundry can sit on our clothes and impact our health. It is real!

So, just using it sparingly is best and make sure to change the setting to do a double rinse on your washer.

I try to really only use this Oxi-Clean spray when the stain is really bad and my choice is between the clothes being trashed and recovered.

Just spraying it on the stain and letting it sit for 30 minutes to an hour really helps too. You can even use a little scrubber brush to work it into the clothes.

Next Best Option, but Way Healthier:

Miss Messy Mouth is a fabulous stain remover to keep close to the kitchen sink. The moment you see blueberries hit that toddler top, just take the top off and treat it immediately.

And the good news is that Miss Messy Mouth is an A for health on the EWG site!

An Often Forgotten, but Always on Hand Option:

One stain remover we often over look is just our dish soap!

It is made to get out oily residue from clothes and it will do the same on clothes if you wet the stain with cold water and rub some dish soap right on the stain.

This is a great tip especially if the food could have any oil or butter in it. Also, just tackling the stain right away will give you a way better shot of saving that fabric.

Even if you are at a restaurant and can’t get to dish soap, try the soap in the bathroom.

It is better than doing nothing and will give up a leg up on that stain vs waiting until you do laundry which could be days away on that item.

Others to Mention:

Hydrogen Peroxide is a must for getting out blood, so handy! I keep a spray bottle and refill it.

And then the soap looking one is from Truly Free. It is great for a first pass on a stain, but if it doesn’t work then you can bring out the big guns.

Top Safe Laundry Detergent Options:

Truly Free Laundry Detergent

Truly Free sells their products as individual items, not as one concentrate. So the depending on the deal you get, it can range from .17 cents per load to .29 cents per load.

If you, your husband or kids are used to a scent in your laundry, but are trying to make better choices for your family this is definitely the way to go!

My husband loved the faint scent left after laundry was done and so did my kids. Personally, I am a no scent gal.

Here are 100 free loads of laundry to give you a good test run to see if you like Truly Free! Plus they have a 30 day guarantee which I am appreciate!

And if you want to really take your health to the next level, just ditch dryer sheets, fabric softener, and 100% any of those fragrance beads.

The wreckage that you could accidentally be causing to your family’s health is for real!

From asthma to all kinds of hormone issues that keep your body from functioning that way it was meant to can come from these toxic products.

If you are dead set that your laundry must smell good, these dryer angels from Truly Free are what you need!

This bundle gives you a free dryer angel and saves you over $90 total!

Branch Basics Laundry Concentrate

Branch Basics gets the job done and if you stock up on concentrate the good news is you will not have to worry about restocking any of your cleaning products or having to reorder because that one thing is gone.

I love that you can use the concentrate to make:

64 Loads of Laundry (.24 cents per load)

3 Bathroom Bottles

3 Streak Free Bottles

3 Foaming Wash Bottles

3 All Purpose Bottles

You can get the following from one bottle of Branch Basics Concentrate. The bottle costs $55.

Get 15% off your whole order with code LANA15!

Another Idea: Nellie’s Laundry Soda

I recently found this brand of laundry detergent that you can order online through Costco or here on Amazon.

I am interested in trying it because it has a good EWG rating AND it is only 14 cents per load! It is unscented and seems to have good reviews.

Here is a BIG List of all the items I shared and any discount codes I may have for you!

Truly Free–link gives you 100 free loads and saves you $90 on a whole bundle of goodies with a 30 day money back guarentee if you don’t love it!

Branch Basics–code LANA15 gives you 15% off your whole order and you can load up on some concentrate that is multi-functional for all your non-toxic home cleaning and laundry needs.

Amazon Links:

Pretty Laundry Baskets if you are tired of plastic ones

Laundry Rack for Air Drying Clothes

How to Do Laundry Better: my best laundry flow

Separate colored clothes, white clothes and towels. (I try to never wash towels with clothes)
Load washer with clothes at night, but DON’T start. (make sure to spray any stains on clothes as you load them into washer).
Start first thing in the morning and try to switch laundry after breakfast. Cold for clothes
- When I switch I try to air dry the best clothes and anything that could be stained. This gives me the chance to start over on the process in case I missed any stains. Heat sets stains, so always cold wash and air dry.
- I go ahead and hang any clothes that will be going on hangers after they come out of the dryer and hang them in my laundry room. It extends the life of the clothing and makes putting away clothes wayyy easier!
Put load away before lunch and start a load of towels after load of clothes.
Switch before 3 PM and try to put away, but no worries if they sit in dryer. I can always refluff in the morning when I switch loads to put away.
I try not to start any laundry after 3 PM if I can help it. My energy wains, I am not in the basement as much and I am more focused on tidying the house and dinner.