- 17 hours ago
Doing more laundry doesn’t always get clothes cleaner—too much soap and heat can leave fabrics dull, stiff, and worn. Learn practical laundry tips rooted in old-fashioned household methods, including why a small amount of detergent and cool water work well for everyday washing, and when warm water is better for grease.
Discover how to treat blood and other protein stains with cold water, tackle oily spots patiently, and brighten whites with sunshine. This laundry guide also explains gentle stain care, thorough rinsing, and safe handling of washing soda and borax. Use these simple washing machine and fabric-care tips to help clothes last longer while saving soap, energy, and money. Delivered in calm, conversational narration, it’s useful for anyone looking for smarter laundry habits and traditional homekeeping advice.
Discover how to treat blood and other protein stains with cold water, tackle oily spots patiently, and brighten whites with sunshine. This laundry guide also explains gentle stain care, thorough rinsing, and safe handling of washing soda and borax. Use these simple washing machine and fabric-care tips to help clothes last longer while saving soap, energy, and money. Delivered in calm, conversational narration, it’s useful for anyone looking for smarter laundry habits and traditional homekeeping advice.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00There is a chore you have done every week of your life, since you were old enough to
00:04be trusted with it, and I will wager a great deal that you are doing the one thing that
00:09matters most in it exactly backwards, and quietly wearing out the very things you are
00:14trying so hard to care for.
00:17And here is the part that will turn your head.
00:19It is not carelessness, it is the opposite.
00:22The harder you try, the more you reach for, the more you pour in, the more you fuss and
00:29scrub and treat and treat again, the faster you ruin the thing.
00:33The folk who got the finest result were never the ones who did the most.
00:37They were the ones who learned to do far less.
00:40And nearly everyone alive today was taught to do far too much.
00:45My grandmother kept the washing for a large household her whole life long, in hard water
00:51and hard winters, with no machine and no shelf of colored bottles.
00:55And the linens on her line came up brighter and lasted longer than anything I have seen
01:01since.
01:02Not from some secret powder.
01:04From a handful of plain things we have almost entirely forgotten, and that no one selling
01:09you anything today has the least reason to tell you.
01:12So stay with me, for I am going to hand you the whole of it.
01:16And the single most useful rule of the lot is the one that will sound the most wrong when
01:21you first hear it.
01:22By the end you will do less, spend less, and have clothes that outlast anything you buy today.
01:30Quick word before we go further.
01:32My name is Esther Yoder, and the old household ways handed down to me, the kind I am sharing
01:38today and a great many more besides, are far more than I could ever fit into one video.
01:43I have gathered the whole of them into a book, and you will find it at EliasYoder.com.
01:49If today's tips serve you, that is where the rest of what my mother and grandmother taught
01:54me lives, all in the one place.
01:56Now to it, and the chore is the washing.
01:59The plain, weekly washing of your clothes and your linens, and the thing you are doing
02:04backwards is the very first of them.
02:06You are using far, far too much soap.
02:09My grandmother taught me this before I was tall enough to reach the tub, and it is the
02:14heart of the whole business.
02:16Esther, she said, soap is to loosen the dirt, not to drown the cloth.
02:21Use the littlest that will do the work, for every scrap more than that never leaves again.
02:26It stays in the weave, and it does you nothing but harm.
02:30And there is the secret the whole modern world has upside down.
02:34We are all taught that more soap means cleaner.
02:37A good heaping scoop, a generous pour, and surely cleaner still.
02:41It is the very opposite of the truth.
02:44A little soap loosens the dirt and rinses clean away.
02:47But too much soap cannot be rinsed out, not fully, not ever.
02:51It sinks into the weave of the cloth and stays there.
02:54And that trapped soap is the cause of half the troubles folk blame on everything else.
02:59It holds the dirt and the smells down in the cloth instead of carrying them off.
03:04So your washing comes out smelling worse, not better, over time.
03:07It leaves the cloth stiff and tacky and dull.
03:11And it can fret a tender skin raw.
03:13So hear the rule that sounds so wrong and is so right.
03:17Use less soap than you think you need.
03:19And then use less again.
03:22A spoonful or two where you were using a great scoop.
03:25You will be astonished how much cleaner the clothes come and how much longer the soap lasts you.
03:31Now the water.
03:32And here is where years of your clothes life are won or lost.
03:36For the heat of the water matters more than near anything.
03:39And most folk have that backwards, too.
03:42The plain rule my grandmother kept is this.
03:45Wash near everything in cool or cold water.
03:48And save the hot for the very few things that truly need it.
03:52And I know that runs against all you were taught.
03:54For we have a notion that hot water washes cleaner.
03:58But hot water is hard on cloth.
04:00It fades the colors.
04:02It shrinks and frets the fibers.
04:04It wears a garment old before its time.
04:06Cool water is gentle.
04:08It holds the colors fast and the cloth sound for years longer.
04:12And for most ordinary dirt it cleans every bit as well.
04:17Cool for the colors.
04:19Cool for the everyday.
04:21That is your rule.
04:22And it will add years to everything you own.
04:26And here is the one that near everyone gets exactly backwards.
04:31So hear it well.
04:32For it has ruined many a good garment.
04:35A stain of blood or of milk or of egg.
04:39Or any such stain that comes from the body.
04:42You wash it in cold water.
04:45Never hot.
04:46Never warm.
04:48Cold.
04:49For hot water cooks that kind of a stain.
04:52And sets it fast into the cloth forever.
04:55The very way heat cooks an egg hard.
04:58So it can never go back.
05:00I have watched folk pour hot water straight onto a spot of blood.
05:05Meaning to fight it.
05:07And set it for good in the doing.
05:10Cold water and a little patience lifts it clean.
05:14Cold for blood and all it's like.
05:17Mind that one above all.
05:20So when do you want the warm water?
05:23Only for the greasy and the oily.
05:26The work clothes black with grease.
05:29The kitchen things heavy with fat.
05:31A bad oily spill.
05:34For grease does not shift in cold.
05:36It wants a little warmth to melt and let go.
05:40And the truly hot.
05:42The boiling hot water.
05:44You keep that for the few things that want more than cleaning.
05:49The bed linens and such from a sick room.
05:51Where the hot is not for the dirt.
05:54But to drive out what carries the sickness.
05:56For that and little else is the boiling water for.
06:01Cool for most.
06:03Warm for the grease.
06:05Boiling kept for the sick bed.
06:07Know which is which.
06:09And you will never set a stain.
06:11Nor fade a good dress again.
06:14Now the stains themselves.
06:17For a stain fought the old patient way.
06:20Comes out where a stain attacked in a panic.
06:23Sets forever.
06:24And the first great rule is this.
06:27And it is the hardest to obey.
06:30Do not overdo it.
06:32The surest way to ruin a garment is not the stain.
06:36It is the frantic battle against the stain.
06:39The fifth different thing rubbed in.
06:42The tenth hard scrubbing.
06:44The boiling and the bleaching over and over.
06:48Every one of those wears the cloth thinner.
06:51And you can rub a hole clean through a thing fighting a mark.
06:55That a gentle sulk would have lifted.
06:58So go gently.
07:00Give it time.
07:01And know when to stop.
07:03A beloved thing with a stain that will not shift.
07:07After fair patient trying.
07:09Is better carried to one who mends and cleans for a trade.
07:13Than scrubbed into rags at your own tub.
07:17For the grease and oil stains.
07:19The ones even the old folk fretted over.
07:23The answer is soap itself.
07:25For soap was ever made to cut grease.
07:28That is its whole nature.
07:31Work a little plain soap.
07:33Or a paste of soap.
07:34And a pinch of washing soda.
07:37Right into the greasy spot while it is dry.
07:40Let it sit a while to do its loosening.
07:43Then wash it in the warm water we spoke of.
07:47And for a truly stubborn old grease stain.
07:50Soak the thing a good hour in warm water.
07:54With a little soap stirred through.
07:56Before ever you wash it.
07:58It is never too late for a grease stain.
08:02I have brought back things long given up for ruined.
08:05With nothing more than soap.
08:07Warm water.
08:09And a patient hour.
08:11But heed the stopping rule.
08:13If a fair trying will not lift it.
08:17Stop before you wear the cloth to nothing.
08:20Now for the keeping of whites bright.
08:23Which is the pride of a good wash line.
08:26And the thing folk reach hardest for the harsh bottle to do.
08:30And you do not need it.
08:33The old way to keep a white white.
08:35Is two plain things.
08:37And the first costs nothing at all.
08:41The sun.
08:42Lay or hang your whites out in the full sunshine to dry.
08:47And the sun itself bleaches them brighter than any bottle.
08:51Gently.
08:52For free.
08:53And with a sweetness no bought thing can match.
08:57For a white gone dull or yellowed.
09:00A good long soak in warm water.
09:03With a spoonful of washing soda.
09:06Or borax stirred through.
09:08And then out onto the grass in the sun.
09:11Will lift it bright again.
09:13Sun and a soda soak.
09:15That is the whole old secret of a dazzling white.
09:18And it costs you a few pennies.
09:21And a fair day.
09:23Now the honest word.
09:25For I always give it.
09:27And here it is a matter of safety.
09:29Not just thrift.
09:30That washing soda and that borax are a help in the wash.
09:35But they are not a thing for bare hands.
09:37Nor for little ones.
09:38They will dry and crack the skin.
09:40And they must never be tasted.
09:42Nor left where a child can reach.
09:44For they are harsh if swallowed.
09:46So wear your gloves when you soak with them.
09:48Rinse your hands well.
09:50And keep the box up high and shut.
09:52And the sharpest caution of all.
09:54If ever you do use a bottle of bleach for something.
09:57You use it alone.
09:59And never ever mix it with anything else.
10:01Not with vinegar.
10:03Not with ammonia.
10:04Not with another cleaner.
10:05For mixing bleach can raise a poison gas off the tub.
10:08That can truly harm you.
10:10One thing at a time.
10:11Gloves on.
10:12Children away.
10:13Windows open.
10:14The old ways are gentle.
10:16But gentle is not the same as careless.
10:18And I would not be honest with you if I let that pass.
10:21And one more plain truth on the soap.
10:23Since we began there.
10:25If your washing comes out with odd streaks.
10:27Or tacky deposits that were not there before.
10:30Or smelling sour instead of clean.
10:32Do not reach for more soap.
10:34That is the very cause.
10:36It is old trapped soap working its way back out.
10:39Run the things through again with no soap at all.
10:41In plenty of water.
10:43Until they rinse clean and sweet.
10:45And from then on the lesson holds.
10:47Less soap.
10:48More rinsing.
10:49The rinse matters as much as the wash.
10:52For clean is not soap left in the cloth.
10:54Clean is soap taken fully out.
10:57And let me set it in the larger truth.
10:59For it is the very reason we were taught to do it all backwards.
11:03Think who gains from every one of these mistakes.
11:05You pour a great scoop of soap where a spoonful would do.
11:08And you buy the soap twice as often.
11:11You wash hot and fade and fret your clothes to rags before their time.
11:15And you buy new clothes the sooner.
11:18You fight a stain with five bought bottles and wear the thing through.
11:22More bottles sold and a new garment besides.
11:25Every bit of the too much we are taught sends us back to the shop the quicker.
11:29It is no plot and no one sat and schemed it.
11:32It is only that a house that uses a great deal of soap, wears its clothes out fast,
11:37and keeps a shelf of colored bottles for every little trouble,
11:40is a far better customer than a house that uses a spoonful, washes cool and gentle,
11:46dries its whites in the free sun, and keeps its clothes sound for 20 years.
11:51There is no fortune in a spoonful of soap and a sunny line.
11:55So we were taught the big scoop, the hot wash, the special bottle for every spot,
12:00and the whole gentle, thrifty old way quietly slipped from the telling.
12:04The shelf of bottles and the big machine are what they sell.
12:08A little soap, cool water, a patient hand, and the sun are what the old folks simply had,
12:14and their linens came up brighter and lasted longer than anything we manage now with the whole shelf of it.
12:20So there is the whole of it. Use far less soap than you were ever taught,
12:24a spoonful, not a scoop, and rinse until it runs clean.
12:28Wash cool for near everything, warm only for the grease, and keep the boiling water for the sick bed linens.
12:34Cold water, always, for blood and its like, or you set it forever.
12:39Fight a stain gently and patiently with plain soap, and know when to stop before you wear the cloth through.
12:45Keep your whites bright with a soda soak and the free sun, not a harsh bottle.
12:50And handle the soda and borax with care, and never mix your bleach with anything.
12:55Do that, and you will do less. Spend far less, and your clothes will outlast anything the shop can sell
13:02you.
13:02Now I want to hear from you. Tell me down below, which county are you watching from, and how old
13:08is the house you keep?
13:09And tell me this, too. Did your own mother or grandmother dry the whites out in the sun,
13:14and had you ever been told to wash the blood out cold, not hot?
13:18For that is how the old ways stay alive. We pass them on. I read every word.
13:24It is a quiet freedom, is it not, to learn that the way to care best for a thing was
13:29never to do more to it, but to do less.
13:33A little soap, cool water, a patient hand, and a sunny line.
13:38And that the whole weary shelf of bottles was never needed at all.
13:43The old folk kept a household's linen sweet and bright and whole for a lifetime on next to nothing,
13:50and knew it for the plain skill it was. We very nearly forgot how.
13:56But it is a plain old wisdom still, and it is a thing, I think, we are only just starting
14:03to remember.