How to Wash your Whites and keep them super bright with Rajiv Surendra

hi I'm Rajiv and today we are going back to basics I am going to show you how to properly wash your whites [Music] here's a very very important thing you should know about washing your whites white clothes that you buy from the store are actually slightly tinted towards the blue shade of white and as you use them it very often white clothes will start to tend to change towards a yellow or shade of white so to our eyes the Bluer shade of white is what appears bright white it's when it starts to Yellow that it appears dull or dingy and just to show you here's an example this is a blue shade of white on this color card here you can see that the darker shade is clearly blue and when I fold this that just looks White and here's a yellow shade of white so I'm going to fold this one and I'm going to put them side by side and you can clearly see that that just looks kind of dingy and this looks bright white so the same thing is applicable to clothing or fabric when you have something that is on a Bluer shade it looks very clean and fresh and this is the kind of white that you want and as you use it and it starts to turn into this it's very easy to not even notice that it's not really white anymore but it's when you put them side by side that you can clearly see this looks white and this does not look white and that's because this is tending towards the Bluer shade of white and this is going towards the yellow shade a lot of people just get used to their white clothes turning color and they don't even really notice that the color is changing I think at some point you just realize oh this t-shirt doesn't look as nice as it did when I first bought it it's when you put something like this against something that is really bright white that you really see like this this needs to go in the rag pile so how do we prevent this from happening well there are some essential things that you can do to actually prevent your whites from turning into this the very first thing that everybody needs to know about laundry is sorting and this is something that a lot of people don't do but if you want your whites to stay white the most important thing the bare minimum is that you wash your whites completely separately from everything else so when you're sorting through your laundry you should actually make two piles if not three piles whites and darks and then there really is a third pile there's there really is a middle Pile in between lights and darks okay so this goes into the dark pile uh this where does this go that's really not that dark and what about oh this is a this is a this is a tricky one what about this because this is mostly white but there are some dark stripes on it so we have this and we have this and what about these red shorts essentially you have more than just two piles you have whites you have darks and then you have brights this would go into the bright pile I would put this in the bright pile as well but if you want to get real crazy then you have four piles you have whites darks brights this is a bright and then you have lights okay so this is the light pile and so where would this go let's guess where do you think what pile do you think this would go in boys what do you think darks exactly that's right and what about this one exactly not whites this goes in lights now why is it so important to separate your clothing and wash it separately you might think that the reason is you don't want the dye from something like this going on to your white clothing well yes that's partly true when when the clothing is freshly washed if if it's washed for the first time yes the dye from this can go onto a piece of white clothing but more importantly it's the lint the lint is what tints the clothing and starts to change what it looks like so if you have this black T-shirt and you're washing it with these whites the the black lint from this t-shirt is actually going to go go on to all of these whites in the washer and in the dryer not only is the black from this transferring to these white clothes but the lint from this towel is going on to this black T-shirt so washing all of this together not only diminishes the brightness of these whites it actually starts to make the black things look a lot duller so that's why we separate things we don't want red lint on black on the black t-shirt we don't want red lint on the white clothes when you wash your whites completely separately so everything in this pile is purely white white lint going on white clothing is fine that is the first step of keeping your whites white separating your clothing into different piles now once you have your white pile of white clothing it's ready to wash and we're going to move to the washing station so I wash my clothes in the basement here in this building but the washing machines in the basement are not as pretty as the sink so I don't want to take you down there what I'm going to do is simulate the washing machine in the sink to illustrate the process right here in the kitchen it's the same thing so washing your whites the next step is water temperature you want to wash your whites in as hot a temperature of water as the fabric will tolerate if it's silk you don't want to wash it in very very hot water if it's wool like a white Woolen sweater there's a separate technique entirely of washing wool but we're talking about washing cotton linen polyester all of that stuff can be washed in very hot water traditionally bedding toweling underwear all of that was white and what would happen is it would all be gathered and it would actually be boiled boiling the garments really gets out the dirt it also sterilizes everything so I like to wash my whites in very very hot water the hot setting on the washer every now and then I've taken all my white linen napkins I've put them in a pot on the stove and I have boiled them so in your washing machine just use the hottest water available for your whites some of these new fancy machines have a steam setting when I'm staying with someone that has a steam setting on their washer I use it I like to add the clothes to the water after the washing machine is filled up with water so that the soap is evenly distributed so here's a washing machine filling up filling up with hot hot water and this the water from this faucet is really hot like dangerously hot are you good one thing I should mention before I put the whites in the wash is that certain things if they if there's a stain on them you want to try to remove the stain before you wash your whites if you get a ketchup stain on a t-shirt or if there's grass stains on something or blood stains you don't want to wash that and hope for the best you want to really try your hardest to remove the stain or at least treat the stain before it gets washed one common stain on my white shirts I think this is something that many men have in common if they wear white dress shirts there's a ring around the collar that's what I like to call it a dark a dark mark around the collar I scrub my neck before I get dressed before I'm putting on a dress shirt and if I'm taking a shower I scrub around here and still there's something always on the collar that's what I call the ring around the collar what I've been doing for many years is before I wash my white dress shirts see this Mark this is kind of gross I'm sorry but I'm being real with you here I use a stain remover with a brush top that's a little gel and it's great it just goes right onto the stain and you brush it in and really brush it in that's the Polish word now this was your washing machine once the water is in there once the soap's in there if it's a top loader if it's a front loader it's going to happen automatically soap in with the hottest water and the whites go in and then the whites get washed the machine does its thing now the first cycle of the washer comes to an end it starts to drain all right we let that happen the water drains out the clothing ends up spinning around a little bit and will really make its way to the edge of the machine and the Machine starts to fill up with rinse water at this step if it's a top loader you open it up you stop the cycle once the washing machine is filled with water for the rinse cycle something and this is a very old method of making whites really bright white something that goes back hundreds and hundreds of years that I'm going to tell you about this stuff is called bluing my parents talked about blueing the water when they did laundry in Sri Lanka this is this is a very old world technique like the days of colonial India when Dobies would take out the whites and they would wash wash everything and then put it through a rinse water that was tinted blue blueing goes back as I said hundreds of years and the way bluing works is it tints the rinse water very lightly blue and that rinse water is tinting the white clothing slightly blue what this is doing is pushing the Spectrum on the blue side rather than on the yellow side so that the whites appear as white as possible Now using this stuff is something that you need to learn how to do because in this bottle the bluing is extremely concentrated this is so concentrated that if you just squirted this directly onto your clothing it would stain the clothes blue in places and you don't want that that's a mistake that a lot of people make today when they find this stuff and they try to use it for the first time they just squirt this right into the washer willy-nilly and they're like what happened there's blue marks all over my clothes that's not what you do there were many ways of blueing the water historically there were liquids there were little powders that were in pouches that would get swirled into the rinsed water this stuff is the liquid bluing and the way that you use this is you dilute it before you put it in the rinse water so if you're at your washing machine the washing machine is filled with rinse water you stop the cycle you open the lid and then you get a bottle An Empty Bottle you can use an empty water bottle fill it with water I use hot water but it doesn't really matter what temperature the water is foreign and now away from the whites where it's safe add a few drops like four or five drops of Bluing to the bottle of water [Music] there you want the water to be tinted sort of a sky blue color and this has to get thoroughly mixed into the water so close it up give it a good shake so that it's evenly distributed into the water and now this diluted bluing gets poured into the washing machine but you want to pour the diluted blue water in the Middle where there are less clothes you don't want to pour it directly onto the clothes so try to find a place where there's no clothes and pour the bluing there now start the cycle and allow the washing machine to rinse the clothes in the very light blue water so gluing is very safe to use it's safe on your skin a lot of people that are allergic to commercial detergents are not allergic to anything that's in bluing I've been using it for many many years you can even use it to rinse white hair if you have white hair to make it even wider traditionally people use bluing which is where blue blue haired people the term blue hairs blue hairs to describe the the older ladies that had very white hair that were wealthy blue hairs I think that's what they called them you can even use it on pets like white pets you can rinse your pets with lightly blue tinted water and it says so on the bottle um I've been using this stuff for many many years and that's one of my secrets to having white t-shirts white tank tops white sheets white towels is that I use the bluing in every cycle of whites this process is an additive process so if you have clothes that have turned slightly yellow you can bring them back to a brighter white shade by using bluing it just takes time it's not going to happen in one cycle it's going to happen over many cycles to bring something back the best way to keep your whites white is to use bluing as soon as you are washing something that you bought that's new in the manufacturing process of white clothes they are slightly tinted with something to make them bright and when you're washing your whites you're getting rid of that so using bluing is adding it back into the white clothing to keep it bright white so the cycle of the rinse on the washing machine goes and then it drains now there are many different types of washing machines out there and some of them have features that lock the door where you're not able to open the door after the cycle starts especially front loaders there are ways around that if you have a front loader the way to use bluing is to add the diluted mix to the bleach compartment of the drawer when the rinse cycle has the most amount of water you wait for the rinse cycle to start on a front loader you watch through the door until the machine has as much water as it's gonna accommodate the rinse cycle and then you open up the drawer at that point and add the diluted Blue Water to the bleach compartment you want to add the bluing when there's the most amount of water in the machine some drawers on some front loaders actually lock so the way around that is to run a separate rinse cycle after the normal cycle has completed itself and when you run the rinse cycle instead of detergent add bluing to the detergent compartment it takes some figuring out how to use bluing I would suggest experimenting on some white towels first experimenting with your machine don't put all your whites in the washing machine and try to do this for the first time if you don't know what you're doing use a few white towels put them in experiment with when you should put the bluing into the washing machine and uh [Music] good luck because it's something that you get addicted to now once the rinse water is out of the machine and the spin cycle takes place you're done you're done with the washing component of washing your whites so if you're going to put your whites in the dryer make sure you only dry them with whites if you put whites with other colored clothing in the dryer that colored lint ends up on your whites and makes them dull so you want to also dry whites only with whites or hang them up to dry the best way of drying whites is really the old-fashioned method in the sun the sun sterilizes everything and it's not actually also bleaches things the sun bleaches things and makes them even whiter so if you live somewhere where you have a laundry line outside the best way to dry your whites is to hang them on the line in the bright Sun it can be intimidating to use bluing for the very first time because I will tell you this will stain your clothes if you put it directly into the washer or if you put in too much start with a mild diluted version of bluing and then you'll figure out how to actually use it there is a method of how to remove bluing from clothing not with bleach but with ammonia bleach sets bluing it'll set the stain so don't use bleach maybe I'll show you one day how to remove gluing from clothing but for now if you want to try this order a bottle of Mrs Stewart's bluing online uh I will also tell you that one bottle lasts a very long time because it's so highly concentrated that you only use just a very little bit in each wash cycle this is very old so a little goes a very long way the pieces of clothing that I have that have become yellow and dingy you know why they've become yellow and dingy those are the clothes that I've traveled with when it's out of my hands how they're washed so I'm staying at a friend's house and they say do you have anything to wash and I go what do I do I give them my whites because I know they're just probably throw the moon with everything else and sometimes I have no choice so I hand over my whites and sure enough when they come back they are not they're not up to the standard they've become yellow and they've become dingy so I can tell in my clothes what clothes I've traveled with that other people have washed and what clothes have stayed and lived here and have only been washed by my hands well there you have it how to wash your whites so that they stay really really white bright and pretty if you like this video give it a thumbs up and if you didn't give it a thumbs down but please subscribe to my channel because we need those numbers so that we can keep making videos just like this one this video was brought to you by Mrs Stewart's liquid bluing I have been using this for 20 years and I completely stand behind this product I think that it is really wonderful that Mrs Stewart's bluing sponsored this video because this is something that I genuinely use and I love and I swear by it foreign

Channel: Rajiv Surendra

Views: 929,459

Keywords: rajiv, stain removal, stain, house hacks, laundry, tshirts, cleaning, washing, bluing, how to clean, how to, martha stewart, mean girls, kevin g, brights, cleaning 101, tips and tricks, laundry 101, rajiv surendra, How- to, howto, life hacks

Id: R87SIgGC20k

Length: 22min 41sec (1361 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 01 2023