Try Laundry Stripping — Your Clothes & Towels are Dirtier than You’d Think!
Today I’m sharing the best laundry & household cleaning tip I’ve tried in a while!
Ever heard of laundry stripping? I really hadn’t either until I started seeing murky water videos and pics trending on TikTok and Instagram during quarantine. People were soaking their towels in bathtubs filled with hot water and a laundry stripping solution, and then showing how the water would turn dark. It’s sort of gross yet satisfying at the same time! LOL!
The more I researched laundry stripping, I actually started to see lots of savvy cleaning sites have content surrounding the concept. So it isn’t a new topic, but I had never tried it myself and wanted to give it a shot!
Honestly, laundry is NOT one of my favorite chores. In fact, it may just be my least favorite household activity, but seeing intriguing videos of laundry stripping had suddenly perked my interest and motivated me to try it!
Are you a visual learner? I was so excited to give this a try that I even created a video showing the laundry stripping process-
What is laundry stripping?
It’s all about getting the stink and funk out of fabric! The idea is to soak and really deep-clean workout clothes, sheets, and/or towels in water for a long period of time using a powerful mix of Borax, washing soda, and powdered laundry detergent. Bacteria, body oils, dirt, fabric softener build-up, get released along with the hard to remove stinky smells.
It’s crazy how even CLEAN white sheets and towels can have such a build-up and create dark water when soaked!
Below is a photo of my clean towels after 5 hours of soaking! Eww! 🙈
How do you strip laundry?
The process involves filling a bathtub or a top-loading washer with hot water and then adding in the Borax, washing soda, and powdered detergent mixture. Then you can add in your sheets, towels, or workout clothing and let everything soak for 4-6 hours. Lastly, wash and dry like normal.
According to DailyMail.com, this 3 ingredient soaking system is more powerful than using bleach!
For laundry stripping, you’ll need 1/4 cup Borax + 1/4 cup washing soda + 1/2 cup powdered detergent
- Borax is a popular laundry booster for lifting acidic stains, making fabrics whiter, and dissolves great for this soaking technique.
- Washing soda or sodium bicarbonate is also great for soaking hard to remove stains due to its high alkalinity and helps to remove hard water build-up in the laundry. In case you have a hard time finding it, I found my Arm & Hammer washing soda at Walmart, and it seems readily available there.
- It’s recommended to pick a powdered laundry detergent as it will dissolve easier than a concentrated liquid one. I am using powdered Tide, and if you need an allergy-friendly option then maybe consider Tide Free & Gentle (or your favorite brand.)
Hip Tip: Mixing hot water and a small amount of powdered laundry detergent is actually another popular hack for cleaning up carpet and upholstery stains. As always, you’ll want to test a small area first.
Here are a few tips to consider when laundry stripping:
- This is a pretty powerful deep cleaning method that shouldn’t be used on delicates or anything needed to be washed gently. Reserve this for ultra stinky gym clothes, sports shirts, towels, and sheets. Also if you do this on colored items, keep like colors alike to avoid bleeding.
- Reserve this method of stripping laundry every few months so it won’t damage your fabrics. This isn’t meant as an everyday laundry routine. Also keep in mind that I have affordable white towels from Costco, so if you have some expensive fancy ones, proceed at your own risk.
- I did use this method to strip my husband’s often stinky white undershirts with success. They aren’t perfectly white, but do smell and feel clean now!
- You don’t have to use a bathtub! I used mine because I don’t have a top-loading washing machine. You could also use a large bucket or do this in a sink using the same ratio but smaller amounts of the recommended cleaning powders.
Laundry Stripping Solution
PrintSupplies Needed
Directions
1
Place towels or clothing in a bathtub or top-loader washer and cover with HOT water.
2
Mix Borax, washing soda, and powdered detergent together. Sprinkle mixture over contents in the water.
3
Mix the apparel, bedding, and/or towels around in the solution and let soak for 4-6 hours, making sure to mix once every hour for as long as they soak. I actually used the end of a broomstick because my water was too hot to touch!
4
Drain the water and transfer contents to the washer. Wash and dry laundry like normal, except now you don’t have to add more detergent.
5
Enjoy your soft and clean laundry!
Now I’m searching for more things to wash with this laundry stripping method!
This is going to be helpful as I’d like to tackle some of my son’s funky smelling football and baseball clothes next. My sister in law recently told me she used this same method in the sink to soak some of her husband’s hats that had a funky smell, which I think sounds smart, too!
Share with us in the comments if you’ve tried laundry stripping!
See why so many Hip2Save team members have these cotton Amazon sheets!
I just add Borax to the wash – most of the buildup on clothes is from to much soap when washing – sometimes I rinse twice because the rinse water if not clear – makes a difference in smell also.
Does anyone have a used & proven way to effectively clean white baseball pants to remove the red clay dirt????
YES! It’s in this post here: https://hip2save.com/2017/04/05/wow-this-spot-cleaner-is-awesome-and-the-regular-cost-is-only-1/
Try power washing them at your local self serve car wash by hanging them on the clips made for washing floormats. Worked on my oldest’s college uniform.
I use Dawn dish soap.
Fels Naptha soap for baseball ⚾️ pants!
Hi. I did this method and I also have a front loading machine. The soap is not all rinse out. I’ve officially done a normal cycle, rinse cycle, and I’m running them through another normal cycle bc there is A LOT of soap left. Any advice??
This looks like more work I will not be doing. Humm, in the old days they cleaned clothes with stones at the riverside. My relatives used to use winter washers too!
Please make a disclaimer that this could be a hazard with young children. Leaving water in a bathtub for that long unattended can be dangerous. Using a sink or the washing machine would be much safer in this case.
lina is probably the best hip2saver. she puts out well-researched, well-thought of posts, unlike some here who like to post catchy titles only to find out it was just a click and bait.
Well thanks so much for your compliment and for reading my posts! I am just one small part to this fantastic team of writers and lucky to be part of it. I can assure you no one means to be click bait-y. 😃
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2288028124600129&id=100001788916824 Sharing my process is making baseball uniforms white again.
Kristin Sharing my process in making white baseball pants white again. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2288028124600129&id=100001788916824
Thanks so much! Tried it today on my husbands running shirts we were going to throw out (pit stains-yuck). We were pleasantly surprised it took out the majority. Going to modify it slightly to soak in a bucket. Talk about dirty water. E gads!
Oh good I’m glad you had some nice results!
Thank you a gazillion times!!! I recently moved to a state with VERY hard water. My kitchen towels feel greasy after washing. It has been driving me crazy. These towels don’t absorb the water. It makes doing dishes a royal pain (no dishwasher). I’m off to Walmart for the ingredients to trip and clean these towels. Thanks Again!!
Wow is all my husband and I can say. His whites have never looked so white.
That’s awesome! Thanks for sharing Erin!