Are You Handwashing Clothes During Covid-19?

In Manhattan how lucky am I to live in a highrise with a clean and modern laundromat in our basement? But during Covid-19, I'm scared to go down there to do laundry! I think catching the virus is a numbers game. If you don't have to go somewhere where unknowns are, don't do it! We are stopping the spread in lockdown by limiting our possible contacts with asymptomatic people who have it. So I made a point of doing all my laundry a few days before the lockdown started (washing my hands like a maniac in the laundry room) and only venturing down there once (to wash bed sheets and towels) after our lockdown began on March 22nd.

Since our sheltering at home, I sort of wear a pandemic

uniform consisting of easy-to-hand-wash garments: undies, t-shirts, socks and leggings. My pajamas are an over-sized t-shirt. And this week I began wearing a few Old Navy rayon swing dresses. All are relatively easy to hand wash and hang up to dry. (The only other times I ever handwash anything is while staying in a hotel for a week.)

Before the pandemic, you could not have gotten me to handwash my clothes at home! It would have felt like torture. I make a point of buying clothes that say: machine wash and dry. And yet, here we are! Actually, I was less afraid to touch the things in our community laundry room the 2nd time around then the 1st time at the beginning of our pandemic. Really, the coronavirus can't penetrate our skin. After we touch the common doors of washers and dryers, we just need to be careful not to touch our faces and wash our hands. A sink and liquid soap sit in our laundry room to do so. I'm more worried about other people coming into the laundry room while I'm down there, which didn't happen either time.

In fact, I learned a few things by handwashing my clothes in my bathroom sink:

1) I own far too many clothes I do not need and do not wear. I'm getting by just fine wearing my curated wardrobe!

2) Handwashing gets clothes surprisingly clean

and good smelling!

3) A good 10-15 minute soak in hot soapy water alone nearly cleans the clothes by itself and lessens the need for heavy-duty scrubbing. 

4) Dishwashing liquid is best for handwashing. I love using Palmolive with Oxy-ingredient. Cleans and smells great!

5) Don't be heavy-handed with the soap ... use only a squirt to clean the clothes. More soap doesn't get clothes any cleaner and requires more work to rinse out with clear water.

6) When handwashing, never let clothes pile up but wash 1 or 2 pieces daily, then hang them up to dry. I toss a couple of items into hot soapy water, take my shower and dry off, then finish the wash with a rub a dub, dub; and rinse.

7) Only squeeze the excess water out and leave it at that: The most unpleasant part of handwashing is wringing the rinse water out before hanging clothes up to dry. I find with cotton, spandex, and rayon, gravity is your friend! Clothes hung up at noon dry by the evening without squeezing every last drop of water out of the garment. It takes less squeezing than we initially think.

8) I decided against buying special equipment for daily handwashing only a few articles. You will need to get your hands wet (or use plastic gloves) ... but rubbing and swishing the clothes around the soapy water cleans as well as using washing boards, or washing stones, etc. So if these extras can't take over the manual labor, or clean better than our 2 hands, they are not worth the expense or the storage space they take up. 

If you have a salad spinner, it works to wring water out of clothes, but if not, wringing the excess water out, then letting gravity pull the rest out is fast enough.

As it turns out I'm a mean, clean machine! Moreover, my hands have never been cleaner when it matters most! And, I learned if I handwash 1 or 2 garments daily I only have to go down to the laundry room (to do bedding and towels) every few months! Since we're home all the time and not going out of the house much, plus nobody is visiting to use our bathroom towels, how dirty can they be?

So the question arises will I continue to handwash my t-shirts and socks after the worry of the pandemic ends? Hell no! After this passes, it will be too much work!😊😃


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