Doing laundry

[Greg]

Since I travel with just a few pieces of clothing, it seems like I am forever washing laundry...

In Southeast Asia I picked up a flat, rubber sink stopper that would keep the water in the sink long enough for me to wash some things. I usually buy clear shampoo and use it on my head, body, and even laundry....but I have used hand soap.  The problem is that sometimes the sink in budget bungalows is dirtier than the laundry, and its not so big.

A friend told me about washing in a garbage bag full of water and soap, has anyone tried this yet? Just curious.

[narfette]

in argentina they sell "white soap", which is a big bar of multi purpose soap which is amazing for washing your clothes with. just a little bit and the whole thing bubbles up. i still use it even now to wash my clothes!

depending on where you are in the world you can generally find a plastic tub/basin thingy or a bucket nearby, either borrowed or bought for pennies.

the garbage bag idea does sound cool though!

[Applette]

Best results I've had with different soaps for handwashing clothes is using a bar of glycerin soap...rinses out easily and leaves no residue on the clothes.

The plastic bag thing sounds interesting....though I have visions of the bag bursting and being covered in wet soapy clothes. 

For drying, I pack  2-3 lightweight plastic hangers....they fit well down the back of my pack (without taking too much room or being awkward). I find the hangers more practical than a line because you can hang stuff around the room without things getting in the way, like off a doorknob, shower head, open window, etc.

[Greg]

I used to carry a bundle of Army 550 cord (parachute line) because it was super light and strong...and somehow end up stringing it across the middle of my guesthouse room to dry things with the fan inside.  In Egypt, I learned to grab a few wooden clothespins because its so windy I would come home and half my stuff would be blown off the line all over the rooftop of the camp.

[Vagabond Vince]

laundry was one of my banes when i had an apartment and a steady job... now that i'm giving that up to be a vagabond i think it's about to get even worse!  i hate laundry!

that said... i tried to buy clothing that won't need to be washed all the time... (gross maybe... but too bad if you're next to me!)  i did get travel undies (sorry greg... i know you said not to), meril wool shirts, and nylon pants.

anyway i haven't tried it yet, but what i plan to use is dr bronner's soap, and also sea to summit soap leafs for laundry.  they're very versitle and can be used to wash your body and hair.  i got them at REI.

hopefully they'll work out and i'll follow up and post how it goes.

[Applette]

Yeah, laundry can be a pain...though it's usually because I've packed too much clothes. More clothes=more laundry, hehe.

I love Dr. Bronner's soap!...apparently, you can even brush your teeth with it as well, though I haven't tried that yet. I have a big bottle of the liquid Dr. Bronner's at home that I use to make a homemade household cream cleaner (like Vim).. I might try the bar soap version next time I hit the road.

[Greg]

I've never used Dr. Bronners or sea-to-summit....sounds pretty handy though. Maybe a new update for the packing list section on the site? 

I agree, sometimes it seems like the only thing I am carrying around in a big backpack is dirty laundry! I was pretty much wash one / wear one
in Southeast Asia, but got lazy and started paying a couple bucks to have laundry done. I learned my lesson though when one old Thai lady gave ALL of
my clothes to someone else by mistake! 

Its funny, but laundry was probably the only source of stress I ever had for 1 year...other than the odd centipede or finding where the beach party was, haha.
Now that's the good life. 

[Vagabond Vince]

kind of a tangent from laundry but i wanted to update my experience with dr bronner's soap for showering.

i used one of those spongee things for liquid soaps (never used them before... i was always a bar guy) and it works great.  you only need a few drops, thn sequeeze it a few times until it starts foaming.  keep it foaming and you're in business.

worked just fine for washing my hair too.

also since i hate having a lot of crap in my bag i cut th spongee thingy in half.  works for me.

[Vagabond Vince]

a quick update on doing laundry...
dr bronner's soap works well for washing small articles of clothing by hand.  bigger items needed washing and i probably just didn't do a good job with them... but they still smelled after i hand washed them.

i tried the garbage bag trick with some detergent i bought at a store and it seemed to work pretty well.

best way is to just use a laundry machine, i haven't really had trouble finding any in any of the places i've been to.

hand washing works in a pinch though.

[Greg]

A machine...? That's cheating!   

JK. You're right, since I was on the road for so long, I handwashed (part to save money and part to avoid having my stuff lost and damaged!) and I still had
to pay to have laundry done every few weeks, otherwise clothes would smell regardless.

Laundry in China absolutely destroyed my travel wardrobe. I don't think there is a single T-shirt that they did not stretch all to hell or spill chemicals on somehow!

[Vagabond Vince]

I know what you mean about people destroying your travel clothes.  I hate letting anyone do my laundry for me because some of my clothes are specialized for this trip... meaning they're expensive and hard to replace while on the road, not to mention well worth the money.

Most places I've been to in China had machines where I could wash the clothes myself.  That's always best.  I hate laundry, but better than having my clothes destroyed.

Like Greg said, my experience has also been that hand washing clothes won't get rid of the smell completely...  yikes!

[Greg]

The only place in China I was totally screwed was in Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge last November.

It rained for 3 weeks non-stop and was freezing.  There wasn't a single drying machine to be found in Yunnan I think (they only line dry) so I
had to put the same cold, wet, crunchy pants on every morning which was a shock to the system. 

[Nuably]

kohoutek big thanks, some every interesting ways of doing it there, I chose the class id one as that worked when I did it, the others do but thay did not go first time.

[Scarlett]

These past 9 months I've been in Europe and finding a laundry machine (and a dryer) hasn't been that big of an issue but I'm heading to Southeast Asia in a few weeks and I'm getting a bit worried.  Looks like I'll need to do laundry in the sink more often as I hate handing my laundry to someone else to wash.  I'm curious about the Dr. Bronner magic soap, but I raise my eyebrows at a soap that has 18 functions.  Isn't there a reason we have toothpaste, shampoo, body wash, laundry detergent, etc all seperate from one another?  Has anyone else thought this too and tried Dr. Bronners and been surprised?  It sounds like it doesn't really remove the smell from clothes, which I've been able to do with real laundry detergent even when hand washing in the sink.  Anyone find that it actually works really well as a laundry detergent?

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