Every Day is Laundry Day

Laundry might be my most hated chore. One problem is that there are a lot of us, and we like to, you know, change our clothes on a daily basis. But I don't like to do laundry on a daily basis (nor do I have time). And right now I'm really way behind (I think I've been saying this for about a year...). So it just keeps piling up, and as soon as I think I'm on a roll, the kids bring down all the dirty clothes that they've had stashed on the sides of their beds for who knows how long. Another problem is that we have crappy closets from another era in this house, from back in the day when two or three siblings could share a room and fit all of their combined clothing in one miniscule closet. So if ever there is a day when I'm totally caught up on laundry, I really have no idea where we would put it all.

It doesn't help that I'm kind of OCD about the laundry. So I'm totally fine with having like six or seven baskets of dirty clothes waiting to be washed at any given time. But never will I mix my darks with my whites! Or wash towels with clothes! Oh no, I'm far too laundry elitist for that. I also have to look over every single piece of light colored clothing before it goes in the washing machine. Stains are sprayed and scrubbed one by one, which makes doing one load of laundry a major production.

My grandma always swore by Tide. She kept a big bushel basket of powdered Tide in her laundry room at all times. She also used an old-fashioned wringer style washing machine until about 1995, no lie. It operated using a foot pump. You most likely have no idea what I'm talking about, so here's a picture to give you a general idea, although hers looked a little different.

I myself am on the, shall we say, frugal side. Over the years I've tried many, many different brands of laundry detergent, including the cheapest of the cheap, in an effort to save a buck. But I am never happy with the results unless I use Tide. This is especially true since I've had kids, because those little runts sure know how to make a mess out of everything. Tide cleans our clothes like no other brand of laundry detergent I've ever used. 

When I was given the opportunity to review Tide Coldwater via SheSpeaks, I was thrilled! Typically I use Tide Coldwater Free and Gentle due to Lucy's ultra sensitive skin. But for this campaign I was given a bottle of Tide Coldwater in Fresh Scent. Using a scented detergent was a nice change. I love the smell, I'm just trying to avoid washing Lucy's clothes with it. I like to do about three quarters of my laundry in cold water to save energy, and it's great to have a detergent that is specially formulated to be used with cold water. While I do use stain sprays on our clothes, and would never just throw in a load of laundry with a hope and a prayer that the laundry detergent alone would remove everything, I have seen with my own eyes that our clothes come out cleaner looking when we use Tide than when we use other brands. The stuff works! A few months ago I asked Chris to pick up some laundry detergent while he was at the store. Of course I was specific, but he was understandably wooed to the dark side of cheap detergents. He came home with a bottle of whatever was on sale. I went ahead and used it because I was desperate, but I ended up needing to re-wash several loads of laundry because I just wasn't satisfied with how everything came out. As soon as I was able to get back to the store to buy my beloved Tide, the offending bottle was assigned towel duty for its duration.

My dream is to someday have an inspiring laundry room that beckons to me and makes me want to do laundry. With the help of Pinterest, I've been cultivating that dream by, you know, pinning pictures of fantabulous fantasy laundry rooms. Because that's real productive. In the meantime, I'll keep trudging along, with Tide Coldwater at my side.

Thank you Tide and SheSpeaks for this opportunity to blog about one of my favorite household products! In exchange for giving my honest opinion, I received a complimentary bottle of Tide Coldwater and a gift card.