6 Laundry Hacks That Will Change Your Cleaning Game Forever

Between work, family, and enjoying everything Chicago has to offer, keeping up with laundry can feel like a never-ending battle. If you’re tired of staring at that growing pile of clothes, these professional-approved tips will transform your routine and give you back precious time.

1. Embrace the Cold Water Revolution

Many people assume hot water cleans better, but modern detergents are designed to work perfectly in cold water. Making the switch uses 90% less energy and is gentler on fabrics – preventing shrinking and helping clothes last longer. Your garments will look better while you save money on utilities.

Why Cold Water Wins:

• Uses 90% less energy than hot water washes
• Prevents shrinking and fabric damage
• Works perfectly with modern HE detergents
• Extends the life of your clothing

2. Build Your Stain Removal Arsenal

Stop hoping one product will solve every stain problem. For best results, you need two key players in your cleaning toolkit.

Your Stain-Fighting Duo:

• Enzyme-based cleaner: Liquid laundry detergent or dedicated stain remover for oily, greasy stains
• Color corrector: Oxygen bleach or hydrogen peroxide for berry, grass, and colorful stains

For tough stains with both oil and color, use a two-step approach: treat with enzymes first, wash (don’t dry!), then retreat with oxygen bleach before washing again. When stains feel overwhelming, remember that professional home cleaning experts have even more advanced techniques for keeping fabrics fresh.

3. Create Your Personal Laundry Plan

If you’re constantly playing catch-up with laundry, you need a system. A simple weekly plan takes just two minutes to create but will eliminate last-minute panic and mixed loads that cause pilling and discoloration.

Think about your household’s needs: towels, sheets, adult laundry, cleaning rags. Schedule them throughout the week so you’re never short on essentials. This framework lets you plan time for laundry or delegate tasks clearly.

For Chicago residents juggling busy schedules, sometimes the best plan is to schedule a cleaning with professionals who can handle the entire process for you.

4. Measure Detergent Like a Pro

More detergent doesn’t mean cleaner clothes. Overdosing leaves soap residue that builds up over time, causing gray-looking clothes and smelly machines. That soap scum makes your fabrics look dull and can damage your washing machine.

Smart Detergent Tips:

• Always follow package measurements
• Use laundry boosters for extra-dirty loads instead of extra soap
• Choose appropriate machine settings for specific cleaning needs
• Let the machine and additives do the work

If you’re dealing with persistent laundry issues, consider that deep cleaning help might be what your home needs to reset your cleaning systems.

5. Discover the Fabric Rinse Revolution

Just like your hair needs a clarifying rinse after product buildup, your clothes benefit from removing detergent residue. Modern fabric rinses work differently than traditional softeners – they actually adjust pH during the rinse cycle to dissolve leftover residues.

The result? Clothes that smell fresher and feel genuinely cleaner. This is especially important if you use lower-quality detergents or have hard water.

When you’re ready to take fabric care to the next level, our cleaning service near me team can provide professional textile care as part of our comprehensive services.

6. Master the Wrinkle-Free Technique

Stop ironing for hours with these two simple tricks that keep clothes looking crisp straight from the dryer.

Your Wrinkle-Fighting Routine:

• Timing is everything: Remove clothes immediately when the wash cycle ends to prevent wrinkles from setting in
• The power snap: Give each garment a good shake before drying to release wrinkles and pet hair

This quick routine takes seconds but saves you hours of ironing. For Chicago apartments where space is limited and time is precious, efficient systems make all the difference. When you need comprehensive apartment cleaning solutions, professional services can handle everything from laundry to deep cleaning.

Take Your Cleaning to the Next Level

These laundry hacks will transform your routine, but sometimes life gets too busy for even the most efficient systems. That’s where having a reliable Chicago cleaning company makes all the difference. Whether you need regular maintenance or occasional fast cleaning services, having professionals you can count on means coming home to a perfectly clean space without the stress.

As one of the top cleaning services in Chicago, we understand the unique needs of busy households. From helping you clean your apartment to providing comprehensive home care, we’re here to make your life easier.

I’ve been talking about cleaning now for almost two decades and I still haven’t met someone who loves doing laundry. It’s a struggle and that’s why it’s really important to find tips and tricks and hacks, but the good kinds, the ones that actually work, that make laundry day a lot easier. So today, I’m going to share with you six of those that have completely changed the way that I do my laundry for the better. And by the way, if you’re new here, welcome. This is Clean My Space. I’m Melissa Maker and all I do is talk about ways to make cleaning more efficient and effective so that you can get the job done right the first time. So yeah, if you haven’t done so already, make sure that you subscribe and give this video a thumbs up for clean clothes. Who doesn’t like clean clothes? Where are your thumbs? Now, I know cold water washing might feel sacrilegious almost like isn’t hot water supposed to get our clothes cleaner? Well, actually, no. If you use a detergent that’s been designed for a high efficiency machine, it actually is just fine in cold water. Now, of course, depending on the detergent you use, it’s going to have varying levels of success. Just like anything in life, you get what you pay for. When you switch to using cold water, it uses 90% less energy than your machine would use when it uses hot water. Further to that point, clothes love being washed in cold water. It’s gentler on them. It doesn’t shrink the materials and it just helps them last longer and look better. So, whenever any of my friends or family say that they’re not getting the best wash, I always tell them to switch to cold water. Better for the environment, better for your clothes or your clothes come out looking better. Many people that I talk to when it comes to stain removal think they need one product to solve all the problems, but then they say that it never quite works so well. In your stain removal arsenal, you’re going to need either a liquid laundry detergent or an enzymebased stain remover. Now, liquid laundry detergents have enzymes, which is why they’re a great choice. The second thing that you’re going to need is either an oxygen bleach product or a hydrogen peroxide bottle. Now, hydrogen peroxide/ oxygen bleach is really great at color correcting. So, let’s say you have a color like berry or grass that just won’t go away. color correction is going to help with that. But if you have like an oily or greasy stain that just won’t go away, that’s when you’re going to need the enzymes. And sometimes if you have an oily greasy stain that also has color, you need to take a two-step approach. So, you flatten and dry your stain. You treat it with the enzymes. You laund. Don’t put it in the dryer. Pull it out and retreat it with hydrogen peroxide or an oxygen bleach product. Wash it again. Your stain will be gone. If you find it really hard to keep track and stay on top of your laundry, it might mean that you need a laundry plan. Now, this shouldn’t take you more than two minutes to do. You can think about it while you’re brushing your teeth, quite frankly. But what it does is it provides you with a framework for the week based on your home and your lifestyle. That way, you’re not panicking at the last minute to get things clean. You’re not mixing fabric weights and colors so that you’re getting pilling and you know muddy looking clothes, but you’re actually being smart about how you’re doing your laundry. It also kind of allows you to time for it, plan for it, or ask someone for very specific help. So, to give you an example, in my house, I know we’ve got towels, we’ve got sheets, we’ve got the adults who take care of their own laundry, and then we have cleaning cloths and rags. So, that’s my mental framework. I know I like to do my cleaning cloths/ rags twice a week. We do our sheets once a week. We do our towels once a week. So that allows me to know, okay, have I done this? Have I done this? Have I done this? There are never any surprises. We’re never short on towels. We never have stacked up piles of laundry anywhere. It keeps the system flowing. And if you find that you’re struggling with laundry at home, think about your lifestyle. Think about your household and set up a laundry plan that works for you. Selecting the right amount of detergent for your load makes all the difference in the results that you get when your clothes come out of the wash. Overdosing your detergent means that soap is left behind after the rinse cycle and over time your clothes kind of develop soap scum. So does your machine and that is why your machine can get smelly and why your clothes can kind of look gray. Now, you won’t notice this after one if you overdose one time, but if you do it repeatedly, a, you’re wasting detergent, and b, your clothes are going to look it, and your machine is going to smell it. I know it might be tempting when you have a really dirty load that you want to wash to add extra detergent, but you’ve got to hold back. Instead, select a laundry booster that will help deal with that specific issue. And you can also choose a different setting on your machine to help deal with the specific issue that you’re trying to get rid of in the wash. So, by letting the machine and the additive do the work, it prevents you from adding extra soap, which you now know is not going to help your load. It’ll actually kind of make it look a little less great. You know, when your hair feels really gross cuz you’ve used a lot of product and your scalp is not feeling at its best, you would use a clarifying rinse, right? Well, imagine if you could use a clarifying rinse on your clothing. Imagine how great your clothes would feel. Even the best quality detergents in ideal settings can leave a little bit of residue behind. This is especially true if you’re using a lower quality detergent in hard water. So when that happens, your clothes might come out a little bit smelly, which is why using a product that can kind of clarify during the rinse cycle would actually make a huge difference. By dissolving those leftover residues by adding this pH adjusting product during the rinse cycle, you completely change the outcome of your load. Your clothes smell fresher and feel cleaner. So why now? Well, here’s the thing. When fabric softener first came out 60 years ago, the clothing people were wearing was completely different than the clothing that we are wearing today and it needed to be softened. It was heavy and thick and scratchy. But today we wear a lot of synthetics. Synthetics are softer, but they also wash differently. They hold on to dirt and odors and oils in a different way. So that’s why they had to come up with an innovation that would actually get better results. Now, to be clear, I am a laundry minimalist and I did not use fabric softener. I don’t use dryer sheets. I don’t use scent beads, but this is something I cannot argue with. I’ve tested it and it works really well. Now, you can use this in every laundry cycle that you do. Here’s how you would add it into your routine. Add your detergent as you normally would, whether it’s a laundry pack into your machine or if it’s detergent into your detergent tray. Next, you’re going to add scent beads. if you add that or just toss in your garments. Following that, you’re going to add Downey Rinse and Refresh to the fabric softener tray or to the central agitator cup. So, to be clear, this goes where fabric softener would go. I’ve had loads of laundry come out wrinkle-free when I do the following two things. First, I listen I listen for my washing machine. And as soon as that little song goes off, I take my stuff right out of the wash and either put it into the dryer or hang it to dry. And the reason I do this is because once your clothes stop turning around in the machine, they are heavy. They are full of water and they sit and that’s when the wrinkles start to form. So if you can get them right away, those wrinkles won’t set in. Now before I put them into the dryer or hang them to dry, the second thing I do is give them a snap. Now this is also good if you’re angry. kind of helps you work out your feelings a little bit. But what this does is it shakes out any of those wrinkles. Added bonus, if you have pet hair, it also helps to shake out pet hair. Okay, so now you know how to get through laundry day easier, faster, and more effectively. And that brings me to this week’s comment question, which is, do you use a fabric rinse? Do you know what a fabric rinse is? Do you love it? Do you hate it? Let me know in the comments down below. It’s sort of a new player on the scene. I will link the one that I love in the description box, but oh my gosh, it has totally changed the way I do my laundry. Let me know your thoughts in the comments. If you haven’t done so already, also make sure that you subscribe to the Dirty Dish, which is a hilarious name for our newsletter. We could have also called it the Dirty Laundry, but we went with Dish, more generic, equally as hated. And what we do is we cover cleaning products, cleaning tools, reviews, tips, tricks, all the things. You just get all the things in your inbox. Although it’s not annoying, it’s the good kind of newsletter, the one that you would want to read. If you like what we do here at Clean My Space, you can also consider becoming a member. And since you’re doing all of that laundry, you need a clean washing machine. Don’t know how to do that? Check out this video right over here. I got you covered. Thanks so much for watching and we’ll see you next