Whether you have a laundry room or take weekly visits to the laundromat, you need several essential laundry supplies. Your residential laundry services provider uses professional variants of the same tools. Included are the basics, like detergent and laundry baskets, but you also need stain removers and drying racks. The latter two are necessities if you want your clothes in their best color and shape.

Stain removers

A must-have for all households, stain removers can save your clothes from permanent staining. They’re incorporated as a pre-treatment to the main wash cycle. Laundry services experts apply them before or after a pre-soak that loosens the stain from the fabric. 

For most fabrics, you can flush the stain out under running cold water, then pretreat with the remover. After letting the remover set in, you can toss the fabric into the washing machine for a cold wash cycle. Hot water and heat in general will bake the stain into the fabric, so save the dryer for after the stain is completely vanished.

Detergents

A laundry room isn’t one without the most important laundering tool: the detergent. Detergent comes in liquid and power forms, sometimes in a tablet form. It can also be specialized for certain washers, like high efficiency (HE) models that reduce the water used by up to 80% that of traditional models. Some detergents are specialized for whites while others are formulated for heavily soiled clothes.

Most households use one or two types of detergent depending on the laundry load. Others might have multiple detergents. It’s up to you and your household to decide which detergent is best, and if you should include fabric softener and bleach in your routine.

Drying racks

For clothes that can’t be tumbled in the dryer or must be handwashed in your sink, you can hang them out on drying racks. Popular rack models can be folded for easy transport, so they can be set up anywhere in your house. Some drying racks have wheels, while others can be set up outside for sun-aided drying. Tracks are a must-have if your laundry loads frequently have delicates or fabrics that are air dry only. That prevents your home from getting crowded with clothes spread out on furniture. This also keeps your clothes from drying with wrinkles.

Laundry baskets & hampers

You need a different place to store your dirty laundry and clean clothes ready for folding. For an easy system, use laundry hampers to store your dirty clothes immediately after wearing them. When you have enough for a laundry load, use a laundry basket to transport the clothes to the laundry room.

For a large household, you might have a hamper dedicated to hand and bath towels. You could also have a hamper dedicated to whites and colors. Some families have a hamper for each person, and when it’s laundry time they do their own load. Others combine loads for more efficiency, which is the best option for families that don’t go through many clothes.

Laundry Care Express — Pickup and delivery laundry services

Laundry Care Express offers laundry and dry cleaning pick up and delivery services to residents in the Santa Cruz and San Jose areas. Schedule a laundry pick up today for your next laundry load, and you won’t have to worry about running low on detergent or stain removers again.