Wash and Fold

I never realized that one day I would be writing about laundry of all things. But of course that was the time when I did not know that washing clothes can be so complicated. Why wasn't I taught how to properly wash clothes? Starting college I've always sent my dirty clothes to the laundry woman who picks them from the dormitory. When I started working, I drop my clothes at the laundry shop every week.

Now that I'm doing my own laundry, courtesy of the office's washing machine, I've successfully ruined shirts on a regular basis. First rule I learned the hard way is that new clothes bleed (I know, I'm stupid). I washed this recently bought shirt that had a red collar; lo and behold, after I pulled it out of the machine I realized to my horror that some of my shirts had pink stains all over them. After much scrubbing, to the detriment of my oh so fragile hands though (rolls eyes), I was able to remove the stains.

I've also experimented with bleach to take off a minor stain on a white shirt that had black prints on the front. After soaking the shirt in bleach for a night, the black prints were "reproduced" on the back of the shirt. I simply had to throw that shirt away (thank god it was cheap).

Which brings me to the cheap ukay-ukay polo shirt I ruined last night. I tried removing a speck of stain just below the pocket using a cotton bud dipped in bleach. That did not help though because right before my eyes I saw a larger, white patch appear on where the stain used to be. Ugh. But wait, I'm not giving up yet. I'm currently soaking the polo shirt in a pail of bleach (okay, make that 50% bleach and 50% water), hoping that the whole thing would fade instead. Let's see if that works.