Social Health

It gets better when we make it better. At HIM, we have a pretty simple idea: gay men with high self-esteem tend to live healthier lives and have access to better health choices. We're interested in improving social health factors that impact gay men, including the big-picture stuff like homophobia and heterosexism. We also have listings for our Professional Volunteers who specialize in social health.

Laundry and Sympathy

Posted by HIM on Sunday November 21st, 2010

Laundry and Sympathy

Of the house hold chores laundry is probably the most time consuming and the easiest to procrastinate if you don’t have a washer and dryer in your home. While it’s never a good idea to judge a book by its cover, how you take care of your clothes is as important as what you wear when you’re trying to make an impression. What’s the point in wearing a suit by Hugo Boss if it looks like a crumpled ball of paper? If you’re spending top dollar on designer clothes, you want to make sure you take care of them.

Laundry machine basics

Laundry machines are pretty simple to use but it’s always recommended you follow the instructions on the machine.

Temperature

The basic temperatures for doing laundry are:

Cold: Bright colours and delicates
Warm: Colours
Hot: Whites

Washing bright clothes in cold water prevents colours from bleeding into each other and keeps them from fading. Cold water cycles are generally easier on your clothes.

Warm water is best for clothes that take a lot of abuse such as towels, socks, underwear, sweatshirts, t-shirts and heavy cottons.

Hot water works best with a combination of bleach and detergent to get whites white again or to get out stains. Hot water is not recommended for synthetic blends such as nylon and spandex as it may “melt” your clothes. The potential for shrinkage is also greater when using hot water.

Detergents

With a lot of attention being paid to energy consumption and water pollution, there is a push towards washing clothes less frequently in cold water using biodegradable soap. While environmentally friendly detergents have come a long way they still fall short of commercial grade detergents that destroy everything in its path (including oceans and sea life).

The happy medium to keeping your clothes clean and helping the environment may be to use a cold water wash with a biodegradable or concentrated detergents (so your using less) along with a stain remover such as Shout or a Tide stick. But nothing gets rid of a tough stain like bleach if you follow the instructions on the label.

-Tony

For reviews of laundry detergents, washers and dryers, check out Washing Machine Wizard:

http://www.washing-machine-wizard.com/laundry-detergent.html

For a guide to laundry tag symbols, go to:

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

For environmentally friendly tips on doing laundry check out The Laundry List:

http://www.laundrylist.org/index.php/faq?gclid=CPK5hMWm7KMCFQkjawodRU9W2w

For step by step instructions on how to do laundry check out WikiHow:

http://www.wikihow.com/Do-Laundry