What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[Sally PB]

There was no dryer in the house, so everything went out on the line to dry

What did they do in the winter?

I remember my grandmother "sprinkling the sheets." And towels and probably other clothes. If they dried too much or unevenly, she would sprinkle water on them then roll them up in neat little tight bundles and set them aside while she made dinner.

I remember my mom "sprinkling the clothes," rolling them up, and putting them in the fridge until she could iron them later. But she had an electric iron.

 

[gtaus]

There was no dryer in the house, so everything went out on the line to dry

What did they do in the winter?

The washing machine was down in the basement. In the wintertime, grandma would hang the clothes on clothes lines in the basement until dry. I imagine it took longer to dry in the basement in the winter then outside in the summer breeze, but that's how I remember it.

She also had some of those fold out wooden drying racks.

I still have one of those type of wooden clothes racks in a bathroom in case I have something that needs to dry but should not be put in the dryer. I have not used it in years, but it folds up nicely and doesn't take much room behind the door.

 

[Sally PB]

I used one of those to hang skeins of handspun yarn on at shows when I had my spinning/knitting business.

I'd use one now, for drying clothes in the house in the winter, but DH would think it took up too much space.

 

[saysfaa]

What did they do in the winter?

I remember my mom "sprinkling the clothes," rolling them up, and putting them in the fridge until she could iron them later. But she had an electric iron.

I'd forgotten about putting them in the fridge! She did that too. I'm pretty sure she ironed more than the sheets too

 

[Liz Birdlover]

I loved laundry day, when I was little we hung them up on the clothesline in the sunshine & they smelled so good! In the winter they were hung up in the bathroom on the 2nd floor. Grandma had clothesline strung up all over, so we had to duck to use the toilet (only 1 bathroom in house those days). Every woman had ironing boards & ironed. I remember the smells mostly, always smelled so nice, she used real Lavender that she grew. Lavender water is amazing, I still make it today. There's nothing quite like real Lavender & how sheets smell in the sun, or freshly washed curtains blowing on a soft summer breeze through the window.

 

[canne50]

But if you fold the clothes and put them through the wringers carefully, there's no need for ironing!

OMG!!! Horror of horrors! The last word is prohibited in our home. They are torture devices for children!

 

[LizzzyJo]

I don’t know what it is - differnt fabrics or something?- but I really don’t have many clothes that require ironing anymore. I don’t just walk around wrinkled either. I don’t know.

 

[saysfaa]

It is formaldehyde. That is what makes clothes any of: wrinkle resistant, stain resistant, odor resistant, mold or mildew resistant, insect repelling, color fast, and it helps cloths hold their shape.

It is not on labels (other than advertising the above), even for 100% cotton or 100% organic cotton. Or the same for other fibers.

My mother was extremely allergic to formaldehyde in her last years. A wrinkle resistant shirt or sheets was enough to give her intense itching.

Edit to add: anti-microbial

 

[Sally PB]

It is formaldehyde. That is what makes clothes any of: wrinkle resistant, stain resistant, odor resistant, mold or mildew resistant, insect repelling, color fast, and it helps cloths hold their shape.

It is not on labels (other than advertising the above), even for 100% cotton or 100% organic cotton. Or the same for other fibers.

My mother was extremely allergic to formaldehyde in her last years. A wrinkle resistant shirt or sheets was enough to give her intense itching.

This needed an "informative" emoji, but "wow" was more what I felt. I had never heard that before.

Where did your mom get her formaldehyde-free clothing?

 

[saysfaa]

It took doctors two years to figure out what the problem was during which they all said to use more lotion - which also often has formaldehyde (in many dozens of names) and when it didn't it had other preservatives she was also allergic to (parabens, a couple of others). The allergy dr wasn't much help with sources clothing - said to just do the best you can and the itching might be as much as half as bad after six months.

Anyway, the itching had been so bad for so long that we went scorched earth about it. We used homemade soap and laundry soap ("allergy free" on the label of laundry products means it is scent and dye free not preservative free).

We mostly used the oldest 100% cotton clothing we could find in resale shops. The wrinklier it looked the better. We tried wool for warmth (scarves, mittens, coats, sweaters, socks) but later testing showed she was allergic to wool also.

I knitted her slippers from cotton yarn because we couldn't find any slippers we were sure were safe. I found one company that didn't use formaldehyde in tanning the leather for shoes - Softstar shoes in Oregon (we were willing to use man made materials but couldn't find any safe ones). We think the Buster Brown cotton socks were safe whether they said anything about it or not.

I found one company in Europe that makes winter coats without formaldehyde, we ended up not buying one because it was nearly spring by the time I found that company; she didn't need a coat the next winter. I found one medium weight cotton coat in a resale shop that was made in Japan at least several decades ago - clothing made in Japan is much less likely to be treated.

I found two or three companies that make sheets without the treatments - I think we bought from American Blossom. We just risked the blankets since she normally kept the sheets in place as she slept.

Look for GOTS certification. OEKO-TEX 100 certification is better than nothing but doesn't cover the entire product; sometimes some of the components are safe but others aren't which makes the whole thing unsafe.

To be fair, we were going for things we could be sure were safe. Once the itching calmed down, she tried riskier clothing (ones with catalog descriptions didn't say anything to tip off that it wasn't safe). Sometimes, the packages the items came in said something, sometimes they didn't but were not safe. Sometimes they were safe.

You have to watch out for marketing - those that say the most about it are usually super expensive and only sometimes safer, maybe. They tend to paint with broad brushes when they don't use some chemical that most do; it doesn't mean they don't use other chemicals - a clothing version of the allergy-free laundry detergents.

Edit to add: remember changes are usually without warning. Whatever category or buzzword indicated a safer option then may not now.