How to Assemble a Laundry Kit for College

Just because you're a busy college student doesn't mean you don't worry about keeping whites their whitest and brights their brightest. Here's a laundry kit you can put together ahead of time to make doing your laundry a hassle-free experience.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Chlorine Bleach
• Liquid Fabric Softeners
• Clothes Dryers
• Color-safe Liquid Bleach
• Laundry Baskets Or Drawstring Bag
• Laundry Detergents
• Laundry Pretreatment (liquid)
• Small Sewing Kits
• Chlorine Bleach
• Fabric Softeners
• Roll Of Quarters

1. Start with a laundry basket and/or a drawstring laundry bag. The bag is handy for throwing your dirty duds in and hauling them to the laundry room, while a basket is better for carrying your neatly folded (yeah, right) clean laundry. The basket also is good for toting around your detergent and other necessities.

2. Pick up a box or bottle of laundry detergent as ingredient number one in your kit. Note that powders may not dissolve well in the super-cold water supplied by dorms during winters in chilly climates, so a liquid detergent may be a better choice.

3. Add a liquid stain/spot pretreatment product.

4. Toss in a box of color-safe bleach/presoak.

5. Pick up a container of fabric softener. Dryer sheets are usually the most convenient form.

6. Include a bottle of chlorine bleach only if you want to deal with the dangers and hassles of using bleach.

7. Buy a couple of rolls of quarters for those coin-operated machines; keep them with your laundry kit.

8. Consider adding a sewing kit that includes replacement shirt buttons, various thread colors, a needle and small scissors.

Tips & Warnings

• If you're inexperienced in the ways of laundry, read our related eHows on getting your clothes clean.
• Remember to sort by color and texture (keep silky shirts away from riveted jeans), separate out your linty fabrics (towels and velveteen are a bad mix) and wash fine washables such as undergarments and swimsuits on delicate cycle (or by hand) and line dry.

[veralee]

on 2/17/2007 Those small bottles of Triple concentrated All are great & easy to tote to the laundry. Also, it will save you a lot of grief if you make a special RED load. Even if it's a tiny load, one red sock is all it takes to ruin ALL your white clothes!

on 11/22/2005 Here at college, it's faster and more affordable to separate your laundry and do two smaller loads instead of trying to pack them into the same dryer load.

on 11/22/2005 If you have more than one or two things that are dry clean only, it may be worth your money to invest in a home dry-cleaning kit. These are usually cheap ($10-ish) and they save you tons in dry cleaner fees.