Washing Delicates... With a Salad Spinner!

Although I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a busty girl myself, I enjoy reading Busty Girl Comics, a fun blog which laments the trials and perks of a busty girl. I think reading it really drives home the old adage that the grass is greener on the other side.

One problem that is universal to women, regardless of cup size, is the ability to easily and affordably find good-fitting bras. I think this is especially problematic for women who are at either end of the spectrum-- either really small-chested, or really well-endowed. So when I chance upon the rare bra that is a combination of good fit AND good price, I snatch it up and hold dear to it :-)

But then comes the inevitable time when the bra must be washed. What's the use of a well-fitting bra if it's funky and gross, right? Yuck. However, I had seen what washers can do to the regular bras (i.e. the cheap, basic kind with no underwire, no padding, and no molding) I used to wear before I had Todd, and there was no way I was ruining my new, hard-to-find bras in a similar fashion! There is hand-washing, but how do you wring out something with underwire and padding, without ruining it? Leaving a sopping garment to dry isn't ideal, either, especially when I live in a climate that doesn't normally get hot and dry. If it's gonna take days for something to dry, it's likely gonna be just as funky with mildew in the end. Double yuck.

Enter BGC, and a post where someone suggested using a salad spinner to wash bras. I had never even HEARD of a salad spinner until then, but when I did a bit of research and found that it was simply a centrifuge device, I grew excited.

I found a cheap, basic, hand-cranked model at K-Mart for $15. It's small, and it's not fancy, but it looked like it would get the job done. It came with a clear outer bowl, a spinning strainer, and a lid with a hand crank to spin said strainer.

The first thing I actually washed was not my bra, but an errant school uniform shirt of Todd's that had somehow missed its weekly trip to the washer on laundry day. So I hand-washed it and gave the spinner a test drive with his shirt. Worked pretty well! It was actually kinda fun to see the water spray against the outer container, build up, and then drip toward the bottom. It gave a good visual gauge for how much water was being squeezed out.

Next, I gathered up a couple bras that were long overdue for a washing, and soaked them in warm water and mild baby soap. Washed them gently by hand, and then rinsed the soap out as best as I could. In went sopping wet bras, and after much spinning, out came damp-but-not-soaking-wet garments! I hung them up and they were dry by the next day.

I was thrilled to see that such a simple device worked so remarkably effectively at wringing out delicates.

The big test came a few days later, when Allan washed one of his hand-wash-only Hawaiian shirts. An XL men's shirt is not exactly a small garment the way a child's shirt or a woman's bra is. I wondered if it would fit in that tiny contraption. But it did! And it worked just as well at wringing it out!

Probably the only downside to this whole deal is the fact that I got a hand-cranked model, which is definitely more labor-intensive. There are other models that feature a pull-cord or a button very much like the button pump used for a child's spinning top. But I figure-- this kind of crank is less likely to break or go wrong in the future (a pull-cord just seems so fragile!), so a little extra manual labor is well worth having a product that will last a long time.

So there you have it. A simple, efficient, cost-effective way to wash your delicates.  If you give it a try, I hope it works as well for you as it is for me! :-)