Use A Salad Spinner To Easily Hand-Wash Your Laundry

Hand washing your laundry may be one of those tasks you avoid until absolutely necessary. Whether you usually do it in the sink or bathtub, the process can be somewhat arduous, and it's definitely not as easy if you're washing bigger pieces, such as denim jackets or chunky knit sweaters. If you're letting these items pile up, this clever hack might be the answer to your hand-washing dread. Instead of using your hands and good old-fashioned elbow grease, why not throw them in a salad spinner and let it do the work for you?

In the era of social media, there is no end to what other purposes people can find for their household objects, and kitchen supplies are no exception. Salad spinners can make doing your hand washing a breeze, and help remove excess water during the drying process! Check out why this simple kitchen tool can be used to clean your wearable greens (and all the other colors of your closet).

Salad spinners are self-explanatory and serve as a great way to rinse your lettuce, fruits, or other veggies, but the build is also ideal for hand washing more delicate items that can't go in the washing machine. Not only is this kitchen staple inexpensive, but all you need to do to turn it into a laundry service is add a small amount of detergent and some water. Additionally, some hand wash-only pieces do better with less intense soaps, so it's wise to opt for a gentler solution like hand soap or other cleaning solutions that are light on the chemical ingredients.

Place your clothes inside the salad spinner with your choice of soap and let them soak for a few minutes, then start spinning the lever. The best part of this hack is that you can control the speed, meaning delicate articles will be safe during the process. This tool will help you get a deeper clean than just using your hands, and you'll also protect them from a rough spin cycle in the washing machine.

As an added bonus, once you empty the water and detergent from the bowl, you can add fresh water, follow the same process to rinse off the soap, then remove all excess moisture with a "dry spin." Unlike when you wash by hand and have to ring out the water repeatedly, the salad spinner will actually get a majority of the water out, so clothes will dry faster. This is a huge perk because some hand-wash pieces can take hours, if not days, to dry.

You can find salad spinners on websites like Amazon for only $20 or less, but the time and effort they will save you is worth triple that. Once you've cleaned your clothes, make sure to wash out the tool with dish soap to remove any detergent before using it with food. Or, to keep things separate, you can buy a spinner just for hand-wash items and store it in your laundry room or wherever you keep your home supplies.