How to cut your laundry time in half

With piles and piles of clothes to sort, soak, wash, hang andiron, the laundry is never done however, MOLLY MAID have some suggestions to help you from drowning under the washing:

• Set up a washing basket system

Keeping three to five baskets or plastic crates for your laundry, marked with coloured ribbons, where family members can drop different types of clothes when they’re dirty. Mark each one as: ‘whites,’ ‘coloureds,’ ‘darks,’ ‘sheets,’ and ‘towels and hand-washing’. Set up a rota so that everyone in the family puts awash on once a day and is responsible for taking it out and hanging it up (little ones may need help) before they go to bed.

• Turn socks the right way out

To save time re-washing socks that go into the machine inside out, train children and family members to turn them the right way around when taking them off. If you don’t turn them the right way out, they get impregnated with dirt, as it gets stuck in the fibres.

• Fit laundry around your daily routine

Try setting a routine that fits with yours, for instance, put the washing on as you’re going to work/ school run and finish the task when you walk back through the door.

• Leave it in the machine

If you don’t empty the washing machine first thing – don’t panic. You have a full 12 hours before that musty smell takes hold.

• Great hanging means no ironing

Properly hung clothes mean no ironing. When hanging your clothes, your mantra needs to be ‘I hate ironing’ and then you’ll find you hang them much flatter. Peg clothes at the strongest part of the fabric – the waist or seam – and never, ever hang shirts or jumpers by the shoulders.

• Spray and go

Why not try an amazing crease release mixture. Mix a teaspoon of lavender oil – the cheapest kind available – in a litre of water and mist it over the clothes before wearing them or hanging them in the wardrobe. Lavender oil is a fibre relaxant, so the creases dropout. Be careful not to hang damp clothes with limited air circulation or an already damp environment

• Super-charge your iron

Another time-saving trick is to beef up your iron and halve your effort. If you have to iron, put some aluminium foil underneath the ironing board cover. This way you get twice the heat, as it’s reflected back on to the clothes, and you don’t need the iron temperature so high, so you don’t risk burning your clothes!

• Beat dirty birds

If you’re freshly laundered clothes get soiled on the line try tying coloured ribbons to the washing line, which prevents birds from hovering above.

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