Kimberly Uy's Blog: How to Naturally Strip Laundry

Stripping laundry has been floating around the internet forever and I’m sure in mom circles long before the internet. It’s a question I get asked about regularly so I thought I’d share a safe and effective method you can use if you want to strip your laundry too.

What is stripping laundry?

Stripping laundry is just removing any residue from some detergents and fabric softeners, or a build up of minerals from hard water that you aren’t able to remove from your laundry with traditional laundry washing methods. You’ll see this method talked about regularly in cloth diapering groups and laundry forums.

Does Clean Mama regularly strip laundry?

This isn’t something that I regularly do because I don’t find that I have build up from laundry products or minerals, but I thought it would be fun to try it out and show you my results and method. After seeing the results this is a process that I will use if I feel like our laundry needs a deep clean.

Why would you want to strip laundry?

If you have sheets, towels, cloth diapers, or any other laundry that you feel isn’t getting clean or might have some build-up trapped in the fibers, laundry stripping might be a good option.

How to Naturally Strip Laundry

Gather the laundry that needs to be stripped. Just like a washing machine, you don’t want to overfill or crowd the fabric – in other words, don’t throw all your laundry in. I gathered up our white sheets and yellowed pillow cases because I thought that that would be a good way to show if it worked or not – spoiler: it worked.

Fill a bathtub or large sink about 1/2 full with HOT water. If your water doesn’t get super hot, you can fill it with hot water and boil some water and pour that in to bring the temperature up.

Add the ingredients:

1/4 cup Super Washing Soda – laundry booster
1/4 cup Borax – cleaning and laundry booster
1-2 scoops Clean Mama Laundry Super Powder – my favorite laundry detergent – it has enzymes in it which makes it especially effective for removing stains and minerals

Stir to dissolve the powder and add the CLEAN laundry – make sure that what you are washing is clean first.

Stir every 30 minutes to an hour until the water is cool – this process will take 3-4 hours. You’ll most likely see darker water in your tub – this is the minerals and build-up leaving the fabric.

Drain the water and press out the excess liquid using the spoon from the stripped items. I used a solid laundry basket to transfer the wet sheets into the washing machine.

Place in your washing machine and launder and dry as usual. I used Laundry Super Powder, Oxygen Whitener, and 1/4 cup white vinegar – this is my laundry routine for most loads.