Originally Posted by
Smallwheels
Kookaburra1701 do you wear rubber gloves when washing your clothes? How many times must you scrub things up and down on that washing board to get them clean? These laundry tools do seem ideal for adding to an RV travel kit.
I don't wear gloves - I probably should, especially with the Borax. It doesn't really hurt my hands, but I do a lot of work with my hands, so they're nice and calloused. For most clothes I only have to scrub a section of clothing 5-8 times, when I had the grease on my jeans it took maybe 10-15 times. (I was also using Dawn dishsoap on the grease.) I don't see any trace of the black marks, and I know I would have had to run them several times through the hot wash in the machine to get those marks out.
The breathing rapid washer (the plunger) is really neat, it arrived today. It really does sound like it is breathing - my cat came out to investigate and puffed up and hissed at it, ha ha. I mostly used it for rinsing - my first test, I used the Fels-Naptha and the washboard on some sweaty tshirts, and then rinsed and wrung them out in the sink. Then I filled the sink basin with clear water and used the rapid washer, and it got TONS more soap out that I wasn't able to do just by hand. It collapses nice, the handle is threaded and unscrews, and is pretty short. If I was going to use it in the tub on the floor, I'd try to replace the handle with a longer one like one Amazon reviewer did. But it would work great in small spaces.
ETA: I think this is one of those times where what counts as "simple" gets twisted up - it would definitely be simpler to trot across the parking lot and use the machines there. But it would be really expensive pretty quick, and what can I say, I'm a tree-hugger at heart.
