I like to fairly frequently add a couple drops of tea tree either in the wash or in the fabric softener tray. Also sometimes vinegar as softener. (I also wash hotter than I probably should)
2 Likes
Tongue in cheek… ‘the label says so’ 
1 Like
Eucalyptus oil is very good and no lie it kills germs. Wjat is your opinion on oil blend eg part oil and part aethanol based they seem to sell now. I never remember seeing ethanol based oil eucalyptus its become expensive to purchase as the oi because i remember prices were cheaper than now.
1 Like
I believe our society has an obsessive and unnecessary preoccupation with sterilising and disinfecting.
TV commercials would have us believe that everything needs disinfecting - but it’s just playing on our ignorance and hyper-fear of germs.
Some products may claim to kill 99.9% of germs.
What about the 0.1% of germs that it doesn’t kill, because they are resistant to the disinfectant?
Well, they now take over, the balance of nature has been upset and we have created a supergerm problem.
Perhaps a wash in a safe laundry product and hang on the line to dry in the sun is good enough.
BB
6 Likes
Oh you are so correct. Too many are far to gullible to advertising. Truly is interesting how easily people are parted from their money. .
The other thing is people don’t read or check the labels. Some of the home brand products that are circa half price are identical or so close to identical.
3 Likes
I worked in a long L-shaped building since new in 2005. until a few years ago. To wash my hands, a frequent occurrence in my line of work then, on very hot days I often had to use the hot tap (before the cold water ran through) to avoid wasting water. Presumably, the cold-water pipes were uninsulated and under the roof which had very little pitch. Is it standard practice for building designers to actually think about this problem beforehand or do they usually just take the cheapest option and forget about the end user? This problem is going to get worse as temperatures rise.
I tend to agree. We use a front loader, cold water, and dry the towels in the sun. However, I must admit on buying some towels, the sales lady suggesting using a warm wash - I forget what temperature she recommended.
My tip for the day - if you have a sliding drawer in your old front loader for the detergent etc, don’t remove it. If you do, and you also have a solution for the mould in a difficult to access area, please let me know…
1 Like
There are a few posts lately which have strayed a lot OT and are making general comments on those who use disinfectants.
If I may just say: The community is an inclusive place where we share our own way of doing things without the need to comment negatively on how others are making their own choices.
6 Likes
For added evidence of how mild sodium percarbonate is, I wear a mouth-guard shaped splint (for sleep apnoea) and soak my splint in sodium percarbonate daily with hot tap water, rinsing with cold tap water before putting it back in my mouth the next night. That was the recommended cleaning solution at the time I was prescribed the splint.
Why do you do that?
Having read the thread I think that if anything that is what has come out in the wash.
Not everybody in my household has studied microbiology at university as I have and remembers to allow utility cloths to dry out before sitting in the warm damp laundry basket all week waiting for the towel wash. As a result small black spots appear that require special “disinfecting” attention. Having reasonable attention to hygiene is not a detriment to the advancement of the human race; casual observation of history points to us being better off for it.
1 Like
There is no doubt that access to clean water supplies and sewerage, cleanliness as part of medical treatment and proper food handling has saved millions of lives and prevented much sickness.
These kinds of cleanliness I take as a given in a modern rich society such as ours and whenever poorer countries can achieve them them outcome is always good.
That doesn’t mean that every cleanser offered in the supermarket is required. Likewise excessive cleansing rituals that some prefer can be a waste of time and money and cause anxiety unnecessarily.
There will always be disagreement about what ‘reasonable attention to hygiene’ means.
“is it standard practice for building designers to actually think about this problem beforehand or do they usually just take the cheapest option and forget about the end user”?
My observations, for which I am regarded as cynical, are that by and large, home designers and builders either “do it the same way its always been done” (thus avoiding the difficult process of having to think it through), or “take the cheapest option”.
Unless you design every facet of your house yourself, a pre-built home will be a combination of the above two methods.
Here is a very common example:
In a typical kitchen, the light is in the centre of the ceiling, but the stove, sink, food preparation benches are around the perimeter of the kitchen.
Thus when you are working at the stove, sink, bench top, the light casts a shadow over whatever you are doing.
How silly 
is that?!
Why not put the lights where they are needed?
Here’s anotheree.
A friends house has a combination “light + exhaust fan” obviously installed to save money and labour. (not an ixl tastic).
But the exhaust fan (built into the light fitting) is only 8cm diameter and hopelessly unable to successfully evacuate the steam from the bathroom. And the fluorescent tube in the fitting is a specialist brand which will be expensive to replace.
So, money and labour was saved during the building process, but the homeowner is left with a useless exhaust fan, an expensive light to replace, and a potential mold problem due to steam.
BB
1 Like
Perhaps you could start a thread about that if you want to talk about it.
3 Likes
Wash everything together according to colour. Towels are cleaner than anything we have worn, or slept in, or on. Towels are used to dry a washed body or dry clean plates (at least in my house). The only thing I would ever wash separately are dog towels, floor cloths and nappies, and then they usually went in a bucket of Napisan first or get a rinse to exclude solids/fur. I always wash in 40° water and dry outside otherwise I find after a few washes things start to smell funky. My cold water is significantly colder than most( living at 1000m!).
Never had food poisoning or skin issues because I don’t put towels in my mouth. I find the heated towel rail keeps towels fresh for a lot longer than hanging damp towels to fester in summer heat and humidity. Or remain wet because the air is too cold in winter.
Remembering Covid is neutralised by exposure to soap which breaks down the protective layer, so presuming other germs also are susceptible to the soap’s ability to wreck their defence mechanisms.
4 Likes
Some yes, some no. Microbes come in many types it is best not to make assumptions about their characteristics.
2 Likes
Soap is a good aid when we soap-up and rinse-off because it washes away bacteria, but soap does not kill germs.
Even a disinfectant doesn’t kill 100%. The best it can do is a log reduction (that’s how we get the relative expression of 99.99.)
Sterilisation will kill at least 6+ log, needed because of the high risk of infection in a wound.
As we are talking about households where (relatively) healthy people live, we don’t need to aim at sterilisation (couldn’t be achieved anyway in an open environment).
I believe that the majority of us know what basic hygiene is e.g. washing hands after we’ve been to the toilet, and when preparing/serving food, and before eating…and that it is a good practice to keep cloths which have been used with raw meat, fish, etc separate from other laundry wash and if that’s not possible we can use some other methods of sanitation. How much disinfectant is enough to disinfect? As a rule of thumb follow the instructions on the box 
As far as sunshine used to disinfect, it’s a very good idea if it was available to all at all times. I’m not one of the lucky ones.
Finally, I agree we should not stress about germs and bacteria, just do our best as we know how 
3 Likes
The Covid19 virus is still such an unknown entity. As a virus it can only act when entering a living cell but we are told that when it is on the surface of the skin soaping-up can make the virus inactive. That was the reason of the emphasis on hand washing and on sanitising our hands when entering or leaving shops etc.
As to laundry wash Choice has an interesting article on how to best machine wash during the risk of Covid19.
4 Likes
Why is everyone so obsessed with killing 99,9% of germs in everything we do?
Exposure to some germs actually stimulates our immune system.
I wash my towels in warm water with a little detergent and Napisan and then hang them in the sun to dry.
4 Likes
Firstly, if you leave your machine open during times when it isn’t used, bacteria will find it harder to build up.
Secondly, I think the whole bacteria obsession we have at the moment is set to overkill. There are so many products to kill 99.9% of germs advertised, we are all suddenly paranoid about dissolving in a sea of diabolical filth. Bacteria and fungus is and has always been everywhere and we are OK. I have almost never used hot water in any machine front or top loading and never had an issue.
Thirdly, hang your clothes on the line to dry as soon as they are washed. Fresh air and sunshine are the business.
However, fourth, sometimes I find that if clothes are left damp and warm for too long, they can get an infestation of something - dunno what it is, but it is whiffy and fresh air and sunshine are not enough to unwhiff it. So that is about the only time I will use warm water, (40 degrees) to deal with it.
Finally, my front loading machine (which I absolutely love for its low water usage and fabulous gentleness with clothes) has a little hygiene warning, asking you to do a 60 degree wash about once every 3 months.
I do this because otherwise the bloody red light won’t shut off!
8 Likes
