August 22nd, 2006

Airing our dirty laundry

When I had convinced my boyfriend Chalerm to do our laundry all was bliss. Except one thing. The ironed shirts he gave me smelled badly. The clothes had a staid, unpleasant odour, and it increased when I put the clothes on and air and moisture began to circulate through the fibres.

At first I thought it was accidental. But it happened again and again, sometimes not so bad, sometimes worse. I spoke to Chalerm about it. He admitted the problem (Thais have acute noses) but didn’t know what caused it. I asked if he let the laundry remain in the washing machine overnight. He said no.

After a lot of sniffing I identified the smell. It was soap – excessive remnants of detergent. I asked Chalerm to use another program on the washing machine, one that gave more rinsing. But he already used it on max.

I then remembered I had the same problem when I was a teenager and used a washing machine on my own for the first time. It came from overfilling the chamber with detergent, pouring in so much that it is not rinsed away in the process. The dried detergent leaves a smell int he clothes, sort of like bad cheese.

I told Chalerm that this was the cause and advised him to cut the amount of powder in half. He pretended not to listen. And if he heard me he would certainly not take my advice. This was his attitude as I was making him lose face.

But when I put on a fresh shirt this morning, the first after talking to Chalerm about this problem, it had an odour of spring flowers - just as in the advertising.

3 Responses to “Airing our dirty laundry”

  1. ralfyboy Says:

    at last …bliss….

  2. popshirt Says:

    We had the same problem. But also Thais love the fabric softener and in our house I found that towels had lost their absorbency; then I read that fabric softener coats the fibers and over time reduces absorbency. We have stopped using it and after a dozen or so washes the towels work like new. I don’t like the smell of the fabric softeners anyway.

  3. craeam Says:

    you are funny …. it’s a compliment!

Leave a Reply

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>



Calendar

December 2008
M T W T F S S
« Nov    
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031