Listen to the text of this lesson via human narration; click or tap the audio track below:
Continue caring for your clothing, sorting by clothing type and color, and improve accessibility in your laundry room. Check out a variety of strategies for making day-to-day laundry chores easier and more enjoyable, and find the tools and techniques that work best for you.
Photo of a woman organizing freshly washed jeans and t-shirts.
Find the recommended laundry products used in this lesson:
- Stain Removing Pen: This small, portable pen can be kept in a purse or pocket for easy use on the go. Click or tap to find a stain removing pen online.
- Textured Wipes: Another portable stain fighting tool that suds up with gentle scrubbing. Click or tap to find textured stain-fighting wipes.
- Concentrated Laundry Gel with Brush: Remove stains effectively with a high powered gel that you can scrub into the fibers of your clothing. Click or tap to find laundry gel with brush online.
- Laundry Pods: Avoid potential messes from pouring laundry detergent by using sealed laundry pods. Click or tap to find laundry pods online.
- Plastic Tray: Keep your laundry room neat and tidy by pouring detergent and storing products on a tray. Click or tap to find a plastic tray online.
Video: Laundry & Clothing Maintenance, Part I
Click or tap below to play the video and listen to the lesson.
Transcript
Now, here are a few tips for your laundry room. It’s always a good idea to have a magnifier close by so you’re able to read labels and getting ready to wash your clothes. You can also place a nice, bright mat on the floor so if you drop an item, it will stand out, and you’re able to identify that there is something on the floor because of the color contrast.
Also, you can use two laundry baskets in your room — one for your darks, and one for your lights is very helpful to ensure you can avoid washing your dark and light clothes together.
So, let’s go ahead and begin. Currently on your screen, I have a blue and white striped shirt. We’re going to pretend that there’s a stain on the shirt. A couple of ways to treat it, if you’re at a restaurant and you want to make sure you can wash the stain out before you get home — you can either ask for club soda at the restaurant, and you can help the stain by wiping it down with a towel and club soda.
Or, you can also carry a stain remover pen like the one I’m holding here. You can locate your stain by using your sense of touch. Once you locate the stain, you can remember it by placing a stain remover pen there and wipe right over it. Make sure to keep the stain wet so that you’ll have a better chance of removing the stain by the time you get home and wash your clothes.
There are also wipe and go products, which are similar to the stain remover pen. These are a little different because its a packet, and in the packet is a textured wipe that will help you lift the stain as well. Once you locate the stain again and you have your wipe, you can wash the stain off with your wipe and go. With this one, you can actually see and feel the fizzing of the soap.
So, when you get home and wash your shirt, you have confidence that the stain is most likely going to come out. These tips can prevent you from feeling frustrated when you have low vision and you’re trying to keep your clothes nice and pretty.
If you don’t have any of these stain-fighting items with you, you can either wait until you get home and use your sense of touch to locate the stain. When a stain dries out, the texture of your shirt gets a little stiff. Or, you can also locate the stain by memory, thinking back to when and where the stain happened and locate the stain from the different feeling on your shirt. Or, you can pin the stain area with a safety pin when you’re out, so when you get home, you can locate your stain.
For example, I’m going to pin the area where the stain is. And this way, once you get home, you feel it and you know that’s the area you need to focus on to get the stain out.
Also, there’s an ultra concentrated gel with a scrub brush tip, and this is for your home use. This actually helps get stains out as well, but it’s easier than using a spray. You can grab your ultra concentrated gel, and there’s a nice brush at the end that helps brush out the stain. Brush out the stain well and push the brush down and scrub. Once your stain has been scrubbed, you can wash your clothes in the laundry and not worry about it.
A couple of tips on pouring your detergent — using a tray in your laundry room is helpful because detergent can be very slippery, and this is one of the safest ways to make sure that you are not spilling on the floor. If you have a sink in the laundry room, it’s also a great idea to just pour right over your sink.
So, we’re going to go ahead and pour. Another tip when you are pouring a cup of laundry detergent. You can listen, you can also feel the weight of the detergent in the cup as well. Again, if you have a spill, you know that you are going to be safe because the detergent is going to land on your tray. You only have to worry about washing your tray.
Or, an easier way is using detergent pods. This makes things a little bit easier, although they’re a bit more pricey. Sometimes it’s worth it, just using a pod. It makes things easier in the laundry room, so you don’t have to worry about chlorine or worry about having additional gadgets like the tray.