Laundry Queens

I have always envied those ladies with good smelling laundry...to me they were like royalty....Laundry Queens. You know, those clothes you love to have passed down to you because they just smell so detergently fabulous. It's the kind of thing that'll make you say, "I'll have what she's having!"  Yeah, I envy those people's laundry soap.  I don't know, I guess I just like the idea of my clothes proudly screaming that they have been washed. Or maybe I just get bored with my old, cheap soap. Whatever it is, I've always envied those Laundry Queens with their pretty smelling stuff.

One of my chores growing up was laundry. Gather, wash, dry, fold, put away, repeat. Repeat, repeat, and repeat again. Those clothes were almost always washed in extra value family size Purex (Mountain Breeze scent) detergent. There were no frills, no fabric softeners, no dryer sheets, and bleach was absolutely not for colors (unless you really hated an outfit and wanted it to have no other use a dish rag). Part of it, was because my dad had an aversion  or allergy (we never really knew which) to most perfumes, dyes, and unnecessary things. Another part was, there were many of us, and many people make many, many, MANY dirty clothes. Our mom was, and still is a very frugal woman. So, extra value family size Purex (moutain breeze scent) it was. As a child, I longed for the day I could buy my own laundry soap so my clothes could be scented however I wanted them too. Now, I'm a grown up, and the thing that I loathe most about going to the store is the laundry soap isle. I still want my clothes to smell amazing, but I am appalled by the rising costs of being clean, and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of options available to achieve that cleanliness.

Standing here in the laundry soap isle I am caught in fight between smelling awesome and staying in the black. Once I've decided on the the pros and cons of powder or liquid, I'm then considering the cost effectiveness of having my powder and/or liquid wrapped in plastic. Then there's the import issue of scent. Would I like my laundry smell like Hawaii or Lavendar? Is Hawaii really a scent? I could go for sunflowers & sunshine or clear ice...ice? Ice is frozen water. How does it smell? We could do Blue Breeze (that's a for real name I just saw)...what?! That's what smuf laundry smells like...right? I just want my clothes to smell clean or fresh or something. Lo and behold, there's an scent for that too! By the time I decide pluck a random bottle of Tide off the shelf, I'm beginning to feel a headache coming on from smell testing every detergent. But it's not over. Behind me is step 2....fabric softener. I groan and do it all again, suddenly realizing why that family size Purex and no extra frills was the laundry standard of my childhood.

Envy will make you do stupid things....like agonize over laundry detergent. Don't envy. Just buy your family size Purex mountain breeze scent laundry detergent or whatever it is you like, and wash with it proudly. Don't give yourself a headache being a Laundry Queen. I'm telling you, it's too much drama.