Episode 152: Laundry Quandaries (part 1) with Maggie and Traci

Welcome to Clotheshorse, the podcast that has washed and dried so many Burt’s Bees lip balms over the years, that I now associate minty freshness with laundry.

I’m your host, Amanda and this is episode 152. It is part one of a little miniseries about laundry! It’s the year of Earth Logic here at Clotheshorse (and if you don’t know what that means, you should go listen to the previous episode). One of the key elements of Earth Logic is buying 75% less brand new clothing. And while that can mean shopping secondhand as often as possible, it also includes extending the life of the clothing we already own. And how we wash, dry, and deal with those stains is a big part of making our clothing last longer.

The thing is…a lot of us just don’t know that much about laundry and clothing care. We don’t learn it in school. We might learn it from the adults in our life (but then again, they might not know either). When you combine that with the depressing fact that clothes in the fast fashion era are more delicate than ever and require a lot more specialized care, well…it’s a perfect storm of lots of ruined clothing heading to the landfill, because no one can wear them again.

Laundry has often been downplayed as “women’s work.” And it is also seen as “unskilled” labor. I say both of those in quotes, because we know otherwise. For the past two centuries, it has been related to women, immigrants, servants, and other low income workers. Of course we aren’t being taught how to do laundry in school because those deciding the curriculum (our governments) don’t think laundry is important. They don’t count it as “job training” or an important life skill. And furthermore, every time someone buys a new pack of underwear rather than running a load of laundry, or ruins their entire wardrobe in one hot water wash…it fuels more consumerism and drives more economic growth.

Laundry is important. And it is highly skilled…that’s why we are talking about it here on the podcast. There are tricks and “rules” that you don’t know until you have learned them the hard way. Learning the hard way usually means a lot of destroyed clothing and linens.

Yes, laundry is a key element of our impact on the world around us. LAUNDRY MATTERS!

In early January, I asked all of you (on Instagram) to ask your biggest laundry quandaries and WOW, did you all have some questions! Ultimately I received a few hundred responses and I set out to answer them to the best of my ability. And I have two incredible people here to help me, help you: Clotheshorse All-Star and Halloween Queen, Maggie Greene, and Traci Pryde, a small business owner and mending/laundry/sewing expert. Traci was a special education teacher for more than 20 years. Then, in 2022, she decided to take the leap into full-time entrepreneurship.

I am excited for you to meet both of them! I am not doing a lot of pre/post talk in this episode because we ended up talking about laundry for THREE HOURS! There was just so much to discuss. Once again, this is part one of 2. In today’s episode, we’ll be sharing our own laundry trauma, and then we will get into some of the biggest questions you had: detergent and detergent pods, line drying, shrinking, dealing with pills, and water temperature. We’ll also share our advice (some of it from Maggie’s laundry magician mom Peggy) about the essentials you should keep on hand to solve your own laundry quandaries!

All right, let’s jump right in!