How to Colorfast Clothes

GADZOOKS! Someone didn't colorfast his gi!

















Last night, my husband's pristine white gi was stained by his jiu jitsu sparring partner who wore a red non-colorfast gi. How irresponsible!

(The Tide "lagot kayo sa asawa ko" commercial comes to mind now.)

Dear Mr. Red Gi,

Please print out this post and give it to whomever is in charge of your laundry.

Mrs. G

HOW TO COLORFAST CLOTHES

Ingredients:
4 liters cold water
1 cup vinegar
1/4 cup salt

• Mix all the ingredients together. Use cold water for better results.
• Soak the garment into the solution. I colorfast each garment separately. If you wish to do one big batch, make sure you soak clothes of the same color.
• Let it stay in the solution for about 30 to 45 minutes.
• Wash separately. Be on the safe side, wash the garment separately until you're sure that your colorfasting was a success.

This is a good way to preserve the color of your clothes, especially jeans.

I hope this helps you, Mr. Red Gi.

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Gadget for Drying Clothes

For the longest time, I vowed not to buy another pair of jeans until I hit my wedding day weight. A major problem being that I was super skinny and fit right before my wedding.This caused problems for our maids because I like wearing jeans but had only one pair that fits me. Rain or shine, they have to make sure that my one pair of jeans, my precious, was all pressed and ready. This was not always possible especially during the typhoon season (the best time to wear jeans).

One day, after witnessing me throw a tantrum at home because I had "nothing to wear", my friend "C" dragged me to the mall and forced me to buy jeans. "Have mercy on your maids," she said.

Geez! I bet our maids wished they had this contraption.













How do you dry your clothes?

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Laundry: Starch Wars Part II -- Glide

I just found out that the maid in charge of ironing our clothes, including my husband's barongs, actually just uses GLIDE!

I know what you are thinking. How could I not have known? How dare me blog about the virtues of almirol when our maid was using Glide the whole time? (Read Starch Wars Part I)

This is what happend... I actually interviewed our cook... Wait! Let me explain. Ate "S" is now our cook but she used to be in charge of our clothes. She was the one who gave me the almirol recipe. The person in charge now, "M", was actually trained by Ate "S". However, "M" is prone to finding ways to shortcut her work, much to the distress of Ate "S".

You should have seen "M"'s eyes when I asked her how exactly she starches the barongs. She fearfully confessed that she skips the whole almirol bit and just sprays Glide to the barongs. I asked her how she makes it stiff and wrinkle free. She doesn't really know. I guess she just did it to cut her workload in half. Luckily for her, Glide works.

So there, it's either Niagara, Glide or Liwayway Gawgaw. I have a feeling that the Starch Wars are not yet over. What do you think?

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Laundry: Starch Wars -- Niagara vs. Liwayway

Me: "Your barong is wrinkled. Change it!"
Husband: "It's okay. Nobody will notice."
Me: "Everybody will notice! I will be judged by how well your barong is starched and ironed. Baka sabihin nila I'm a bad housewife."













(WARNING: Be sure to also read Starch Wars Part II)

Korean Wife is to Kimchi as Mrs. G is to Starched Barong

The excited new homemaker in me made me buy cans and cans of Niagara Spray Starch for my husband's barongs. It used to be at the top of my grocery list even though I was scandalized by its price. I don't know how many cans of Niagara I used before our maid suggested that we try the good ol' trusty almirol.

I bought Liwayway Gawgaw and let the maid experiment with the barongs. Lo' and behold! She was able to achieve starch perfection.

Advantages of Almirol:

1. Cheaper. Gawgaw is only P42.25 and it will take months before you use up 1 kilo. Niagara Spray Starch (Original) is P 92.50 (Rustan's Supermarket). You're lucky if a can lasts you one week.
2. Clothes are Easier to Iron. Our maid finds it easier to iron the barongs when we use almirol.
   
3. Eco-friendly. Remember, those cans will end up in landfills. What a waste.
   
4. Cheaper. Oh! I already mentioned that.

Our Maid's Special Almirol Recipe

1. Mix gawgaw and coldwater in a basin. The amount of gawgaw will depend on how many clothes you need to starch. Add just enough cold water to liquefy the gawgaw.
2. Stir the mixture until the lumps disappear.
3. Slowly add boiling water to the mixture. Continue stirring to prevent lumping.
   
4. Add more water (regular tap water temperature) to cool and dilute the mixture.
5. Add the barongs and soak them for around 15 minutes. Consider this as your last rinse.
6. Wring the barong then shake off excess starchy mixture.
7. Line-dry.
8. Iron the barong before it’s completely dry. If you got it bone dry from the clothesline, spray it with some water. The barong must be damp before it is ironed.

Disclaimer: I have no personal knowledge as to how almirol is made/done. I'm not even sure if it's a noun or a verb. I just translated and transcribed the instructions given to me by our maid. According to her, she never measures the amount of gawgaw or water she adds. She just estimates. Good luck.

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Drying Clothes: Dryer or Clothesline

"BALCONIES. The balconies may not be used as drying area for clothes or as storage area for any material visible from the outside."

Drying clothes could be a challenge if you live in a condominium unit. Buying a dryer unit would seem to be the easy solution but it's not.

First, you have to solve the SPACE issue. Where will you put the dryer? Will you also buy a washing machine? You will have to find a place near a source of water, a drain and an electric outlet. Luckily, I was able to solve all of these when we had our unit renovated. I found the LaGermania Washer and Dryer combo, one compact unit that washes and dries! The contractor was also able to reserve a space for the unit in our laundry area.

However, there is this second problem, the COST. Not only is the unit expensive (it was around P45,000 three years ago), it also eats up large amounts of electricity. That P45,000-unit will probably eat up around P1,500 in electricity a month.

In the end, we ended up not buying the unit. We just hired an extra helper to do the laundry and she uses the clotheslines at our rooftop to dry our clothes. It works well for us, for now. If we decide to buy a dryer some day, there is a space ready for it in our laundry area. In the meantime, I placed a kitchen rack there and I am loving the extra storage space.

Here is a link to a site that gives useful tips on air drying clothes - http://www.tiptheplanet.com/index.php?title=Air_dry_washing

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Laundry: Stain Removal Guide

Here are two links to printable stain removal guides:

By Real Simple
http://www.realsimple.com/realsimple/web/forms/stain.pdf

By Martha Stewart
http://images.marthastewart.com/images/content/web/pdfs/pdf3/stain_removal_basics.pdf

I like the Real Simple chart better because it tackles two types of bloods stains (fresh and dried). In Martha Stewart's chart, it is discussed under "Protein", with egg stains.

Unless you are menopausal, you will most likely encounter blood stains every month. In our house, we only deal with two types of stains: blood and chocolate.

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Laundry: Care Labels

Here is a link to the site with a printable guide to common laundry care symbols:

http://www.textileaffairs.com/lguide.htm

It is very important that your labandera/plantsadora knows how to decipher these signs.

I already had two kasambahay-related crying incidents. The first one involves my clothes being burned for the nth time. I have learned my lesson so I now make sure that every time I buy new clothes, I discuss with the maid the care symbols and the instructions on how to launder and iron them.

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