I’m done and I’ll say it. The best laundry sheet detergent1 is not that great and the best laundry sheets probably doesn’t beat the worst laundry detergent.2 I’ve been trying to be ecology conscious, reduce plastic, compostable packaging, but y’all, 4 years of small loads, multiple washes and clean adjacent clothes, I’m done. I’m done with musty towels, oil stains, lipstick marks, all of it. They won’t tell you directly, but I will, the laundry sheets aren’t getting the job done.
I lost sight of purpose. The purpose of laundry is to get clothes clean and fresh. Laundry sheets hail themselves as more environmentally friendly with no plastic jug, however, multiple washes to get clothes clean requires more water not to mention additional microfiber waste, additional energy, the environmental impact comes out about even. I am not walking around in dingy clothes with a faint odor, with an environmentally friendly button on. I like to be clean and pleasant smelling.
Sometimes we lapse into an outcome and lose the sense of purpose. Not on this one, I’m back to detergent pods. My end goal is clean fresh smelling clothes.
Age brings experience and wisdom in choices. The brain’s frontal lobe is not fully formed until at least 25 years of age. This development of the pre-frontal cortex of the frontal lobe allows the pros and cons of a decision to be processed. Kids, teenagers and young adults don’t fully have this ability yet. That’s not to be dismissive or anything, but, they are, as I once was missing a piece of the puzzle. So, to all the mothers, I would imagine you have to remind yourself of your purpose in child rearing, rationalize if you are dealing with someone with a fully formed frontal lobe and act accordingly. When you’re at the very end of that final thread of nerves you have, keep in mind the end goal. Rather than publish on Monday, I made a choice for Sunday to wish a Happy Mother’s Day to the mothers out there.
1 Laundry sheets are liquidless detergents designed as eco-friendly alternatives to chemical-laden bottle detergents that pollute our streams.
2Even the best detergents can’t remove every stain completely. But laundry sheets as a group didn’t perform well—netting scores that range from mediocre to lousy. “In fact, they had lower performance as a group than our lowest-performing liquid or pod/packs detergents,” Handel says.
Balancing on Unstable Surfaces 