Things about Laundry I Learned From My Kids {plus Laundry Detergent Recipes & Woolzies Dryer Ball Giveaway}

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Disclosure: Woolzie provided me with a set of their dryer balls for review. All opinions are my own. 

A domestic goddess I am not. You can call me King Queen of the Mountain though…the mountain of laundry, that is. With 3 kids and a busy sports schedule, we generate a lot of laundry. As a result, over the years, I’ve gleaned a lot of information about the laundry…some of which you probably won’t find too helpful, and some of which you might!

The laundry multiplies. And multiplies. And multiplies. I can’t keep up. Certain children try something on, decide not to wear it, throw it on the floor where it gets mixed in with the smelly soccer stuff, and then when the room finally gets cleaned (a miracle in and of itself), the clean gets swept up with the dirty right into the laundry baskets. Who am I kidding…this one is all on my daughter. She generates more laundry than the other 4 of us combined. Thank goodness she is doing most of her own laundry now. Regardless, I need a whole other person to do the chores around here, so I can blog. Since that’s not happening, I just kind of hope the chores will all go away.

No one can read in my house. Ok, my kids can read. But what is it with the laundry room? Do we call this selective reading?  I have 3 baskets: white, light and dark. They are L-A-B-E-L-E-D. And yet the laundry gets dumped on the floor right in front of them, like no one understands the meaning of those 3 words. Since I just found out my children are actually stalking my blog, take a hint. Dirty laundry does NOT go on the floor.

I should not bother folding. Rather than put anything away, the kids rustle through their basket until they find what they are looking for, in the process unfolding everything else. I’m not sure why I spent that hour of my life making everything neat so it could be put away in an orderly fashion.

Buy everyone the same sports socks. This is a lifesaver. I never have to worry what goes in whose baskets. It’s all the same. YIPPEE! This is my favorite tip ever!!

Anyway, you get the picture here…we have a lot of laundry. Which means we use a lot of laundry detergent. Which is not cheap. So when I found a recipe to make my own laundry detergent, I was pretty excited. A couple of my friends laughed at me. I guess that’s understandable, given my reputation as Clutter Cathi who can’t keep up with the house (again, I like blogging more than housework). But I did find the time to make my own laundry detergent. I felt just a little bit proud of myself. I saved some money too.

If you want to give this a try (and I promise it’s not hard…after all I did it!), check out these laundry detergent recipes from One Good Thing, by Jillee: Homemade Laundry Detergent by Jillee and  Super Concentrated No-Grate Liquid Laundry Detergent. They were both easy to make, especially the liquid version, and they were inexpensive to make as well! Even better, both work great! (Sorry, no liquid pictures, I made it in my All detergent bottle.)

Homemade Laundry Detergent

Woolzies Dryer Balls –
A natural fabric softener

Then I came across a new alternative to dryer sheets. I like my clothes nice and soft, but I don’t really like the chemicals in the dryer sheets. I have eczema so I try to be careful with what I use. So when I found out about Woolzies Dryer Balls, a natural fabric softener, I was intrigued. Woolzies are wool dryer balls made out of pure handmade New Zealand wool. They are allergen-free, and they soften your laundry naturally without the chemicals of fabric softeners. And not only do they help reduce static electricity and wrinkles (key here, because it’s going back in the wash if it’s wrinkled…I don’t do ironing!), but they also reduce drying time by about 25%. Make sure you put all the dryer balls from the package in the dryer at the same time…the reason drying time is reduced is because having all the balls bouncing around in the dryer, they separate the clothes from each other to allow them to dry faster. Faster drying saves time, money and energy! Huge win! And you’ll be able to get about 1000 loads out of them. Besides their company mission of being eco-friendly, I also like the fact that Woolzies are handmade in Nepal, providing much needed income to people there. While I normally wouldn’t get excited about household chores like the laundry, I really do like these dryer balls. (Unfortunately my dog likes them too…I found one in the pool area tonight. If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that Murphy is quite the imp!)

Woolzies Dryer Balls

I won’t make your laundry detergent for you, but I AM offering you a chance to win a package of the Woolzie’s Dryer Balls, courtesy of our friends over at Soft By Nature, Inc!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

You must be 18 to enter. US and International welcome. The winner will receive one box of Woolzie’s Dryer Balls. Good luck!

Disclosure: I was given a box of Woolzies dryer balls to review, and received no other compensation for this review. All opinions are my own.