Better Laundry Habits

Better Laundry Habits

Boil your underwear. In long-ago days, all sheets, towels,
table cloths, and underwear were separated and boiled.
With the convenience of our electric washing machine, we
tend to overlook the fact that underwear is always contaminated
by fecal matter and urogenital secretions and excretions. Mixing
these with socks and towels and dishcloths is all right if you are

going to kill everything anyway. But if you don't kill them, as in
cold water washes, you are mixing the yeast, parasite eggs,
bacterial spores, and fungus from underwear with all the other
clothing you and your family wear. An enlightened system would
be to add an antiseptic to the wash or rinse cycle. Lime water
(calcium hydroxide) or iodine based antiseptics seem obviously
simple methods to accomplish this. In the absence of this
protection, use dryer heat to do your sterilizing. Underwear
should be dried until too hot to handle.
Bleach can kill a lot, but doesn't kill Giardia spores and a lot
of types of fungus. Don't rely on bleaching. Besides, your skin
absorbs it from clothing, it is quite toxic to you, and can cause
mental effects.
Commercial detergents are polluted with PCBs and have
cobalt added. Both of these are easily picked up through your
skin. Use washing soda and borax in the wash cycle. They do
not clean quite as well as modern detergents, but there is less
static cling, eliminating the need to put more chemicals in your
dryer. For spot removal use homemade bar soap.