Smell Ya Later!

Many people may not give this a second thought but laundry, or more specifically, nice smelling laundry is very important to me. I will go off-brand for most everything except for two things – toilet paper (Scott only!) and laundry detergent. I will spend 20 minutes in the laundry aisle at the grocery opening and smelling every new scent that has come out since I was last there.  I used to be a die-hard Tide girl. My husband used Tide while he was at boot camp and during his training, and the smell of Tide always brought good memories to mind. However, lately, I’ve switched to this:

Yep, baby detergent. It’s gentle on skin and again, the scent brings wonderful memories to mind. It smells like a newborn baby. And what’s better than newborn baby smell?! Not many things, my friend.

So in conjunction with that, I also use this:

Purex Crystals in Fresh Spring Waters scent. It is a fantastic fabric softener that you just pour right into the wash along with your laundry detergent. I used to be a strict Downy in the Downy ball girl, but no more! The Dreft and Purex scents combine to a clean, comforting scent that lasts all day (or longer, like on my work sweaters that I wear for a few days before washing again).

But wait! That’s not all! I have one more piece to my laundry puzzle. I also add in about a ½ cup of….

Baking soda! Baking soda is a wonder product. It has tons of everyday uses and it really works! And it's super cheap. Always a plus!

Here’s a little bit of why baking soda works: Give your laundry a boost by adding 1/2 cup of baking soda to your laundry to make liquid detergent work harder. A better balance of pH in the wash gets clothes cleaner, fresher, and brighter.

Check out this link to find more uses for baking soda - http://green.yahoo.com/blog/care2/4/40-fantastic-uses-for-baking-soda.html

Back to laundry - A lot of people only use either fabric softener or dryer sheets but not both. I use both. I have found that no matter what time of the year, if I don’t use dryer sheets, our clothes get a lot of static. So I use two different dryer sheets. Sometimes I use Woolite (which often times, the dollar store has for, yep, a dollar.), other times I will use Downy in Lavender scent.

So that’s my laundry regiment, interesting stuff I know!

And here’s an interesting fact and smell and memory - A smell can bring on a flood of memories, influence people's moods and even affect their work performance. Because the olfactory bulb is part of the brain's limbic system, an area so closely associated with memory and feeling it's sometimes called the "emotional brain," smell can call up memories and powerful responses almost instantaneously. We make most of our olfactory memories as children!