Tuesday, November 25, 2008

A quick laundry tip

Sometimes I wonder what in the world was I thinking? This past weekend Ray worked on a snowmobile with his brother. By the time he came home he was covered in grease and oil, but that wasn't the worse part. He stunk of gasoline...ewww! So I had him take his clothes off in the laundry area and I threw them in the washer right away.

Yeah...no fore thought or anything. Do you know what they smelled like after the cycle was done? Gasoline. Yep. Then I thought, "Hey! I have a remedy for that and why didn't I think of it before?" So I tried it...

Gasoline On Clothing: Gasoline is an oil based product, therefore, use another oil based product to pull out the odor (which is left because all the gas oil has not been removed yet). You can use any kind of oil that normally washes out of clothing, like baby oil. Put some of the oil into the washer along with the items, let it swish around for a while, then put in the detergent and all should come out okay.

Well, I didn't have any baby oil in the house but I did have some mineral oil. (Baby oil is basically just mineral oil with some scent) So I poured some of that in and let it agitate for a few minutes, then added detergent and let the machine run through. When it was done, there was absolutely no odor of gasoline left on the clothes. YEA!

An unforeseen benefit? I usually keep the lid on my washer closed because it has this "odor", it's kind of like a mildewy smell, sort of. However, since I washed the work clothes with mineral oil I have not smelled that odor. So if your machine has an odor you might want to try running a wash cycle with just water and approx. a 1/4 cup of mineral or baby oil.

I have a full day today and lots of things to fit into a few hours so I'm gonna get of off this machine and get started.

Have a wonderful day!
Jill Marie

2 comments:

Sage Ravenwood said...

Murphy's Oil works too. I used to work in a print shop with chemicals and ink all day. It was the only thing that would take the smell out. I would soak my work clothes in diluted Murphys oil, wring out then wash with detergent. Works every time. For some reason Milk works to soak ink out of clothing if you get to it soon enough. (Hugs)Indigo

Anonymous said...

wow! a big thanks for that tip!