Melissa Pateras

People are still under the impression that you need to use hot water to get your clothes clean.

And that just isn't the case because most detergent is formulated to work in cold water.

Hot and warm water are the leading cause of fading.

What you don't need, I think the biggest thing is bleach, you know, chlorine bleach.

I think a lot of us grew up with that.

And a lot of people think that they need bleach to make their whites white.

And, you know, chlorine bleach makes your whites yellow over time.

So I always recommend using oxygenated bleach because it's color safe and it actually makes your whites white.

And I think that's a big one.

You know, another thing is too much detergent.

That's the main thing that people are using a tremendous amount of detergent.

And I think by and large, most people think more soap equals more clean, which it's hard for people to understand that it actually has the opposite effect.

Because if there's, you know, especially because now we have high efficiency machines, so they're using less water and the machine can't rinse out all of the detergent that people are using.

And therefore, you've got this terrible residue on your clothing that actually attracts more dirt.

So people were really astounded when I sort of started talking about two tablespoons of detergent is all that you need.

And a lot of people didn't believe it at first.

But, you know, as time is going on, I get a ton of comments and emails of people saying, thank you so much.

Like, I'm saving money and my clothes are clean.

They're great.

Pods are amazing.