About a month ago our septic system decided it was tired and gave up the ghost. Because we are within 200 feet from the sewer, we are required to hook up. This is a massive project and we are still in the middle of it all. As we wait for the wheels to move along we are on serious water conservation at our home. My daily chores have taken a bit of a turn. One of the biggest changes is doing my laundry at the local laundry mat. Packing up your laundry and hauling into the van, carrying it into another building, washing and then packing it all back home, this is indeed a big change. Laundry day used to be sorting and the big 30 ft move to the laundry room.
I don't really mind the change, truth be know I actually like my weekly trips to the laundry mat. What I'm not fond of is the smelly clothes I come home with. We are a scent free family- as we try to use non scented cleaning products whenever we can. After 20 years of professional cleaning we can no longer stomach poof poof fragrances.
At the laundry mat most machines have residual residue of fabric softeners, scented detergents and dryer sheets. After my first trip, my clothes reeked from those left over scents. I couldn't get the heavy floral odor out of our clothes. We even hung all the clothes outside in the sun all day. After about 8 sunny, windy hours our clothes were still smelly. Most of the clothes had to be rewashed. To offset these residues, now I wash the clothes with an extra rinse and bring the clothes back home to dry. They are passable but they still have a definite laundry flowery odor! I think this is crazy- these are some serious penetrating and determined fragrances!!
I wonder, even after all this washing, rinsing and drying without dryer sheets and I still have smelly clothes, what about the clothes that are actually washed in all those scented, residue leaving fragrances???? How much smelly residue are we putting into our clothes? What about the clothes for babies and children? Is this a good thing?
This is a thought worth pondering in our daily chores. What residues do we leave behind?
Clean doesn't really smell.
Happy washing,
Denise
