We’ve all experienced it.
You just cleaned the house, you washed all your dirty clothes, you folded them and put them away.
The house is beautiful and clean.
And after three days this chair is breaking under the weight of your laundry. Again.
Well let me tell you, we’ve all been there.
Especially as a dancer it is hard to keep up with your laundry. You sweat, you work out, you push your body to the limits… every day. And on top of that you still feel the pressure to look beautiful and flawless in every situation.
The good news is: There are some easy ways to stay on top of your laundry.
Let me show you how you can fight and finally win over the laundry monster.
Laundry Hacks
1. Unpack your dance bag right away
To get your laundry routine going, you need to fight the monster the moment you come home.
I know you are tired after dance class. You just want to eat, shower and relax. Belive me, I want that too. There is no way, that anyone gets me to do something after a hard dance practice.
But if you don’t unpack your dance bag right away, let’s be honest, you will just kick it in a corner, where it will be forgotten until the next practice. And in the hurry to get to class the next day, you’ll throw out the used dance clothes and they end up somewhere, but not in the laundry basket. And here is where the chaos begins.
There is an easy solution for avoiding this:
Create a routine for when you come home from dance class.
The first thing I like to do, when I get home, is to heat up water for a quick dinner. I finish class usually quite late, so I’m hungry. And belive me, you don’t want to meet me, when I’m hungry… 
But in the meantime, when the water is boiling, I take out all the dance clothes of my bag. In the beginning you probably need to make some effort to build this habit. But if you do this on a regular basis, you are already half way there to stay ahead of your laundry.
7 things you need for your first dance class
You made the decision: You want to start dancing. You are excited, the first dance class is coming up soon. And then a million questions
The next step is to sort out efficiently the dance clothes you took just out of the bag:
2. Sort your laundry efficiently
There are five categories of dance costumes to pull out of your dance bag and sort:
The first one is easy: clothes you didn't wear.
Do yourself a favour and just take them out of your bag and put them nicely folded back in your closet.
It happens to me all the time, that I take out my clean dance clothes and put just somewhere but in the closet. And after days wandering around the room, they aren’t so clean anymore. And then I have to do even more laundry.
So don’t be me and put them back in the right place. You will thank yourself for it after.
The second category are worn-once clothes.
They aren’t exaclty dirty but aren’t clean either. Maybe you just had a light dance practice with lot of tecnical work and you didn’t sweat so much.
If the clothes are not wet and they don’t smell, there is no need to wash them right away. It is perfectly fine to wear them again.Read how to deal with these clothes in part 3.
The thrid category are dirty dance clothes.
This is an easy category as well. Here you have all the dance clothes that need to be washed.
It makes sense to seperate the wet and smelly clothes from the clean ones in your bag right away. There are some waterproof laundry bags you can put in your dance bag. And after practice you just collect all the wet and dirty clothes in there.
This has two advantages: first of all your clean clothes stay clean and don’t get soaked by the used ones. The second on is that you can take out the laundry bag at home and you are done with sorting clothes.
The last category are defect clothes
While dancing it happens easily, that you ruin some of your clothes.
If you can’t fix a piece anymore, throw it away immediately. There is no sense in keeping it just a little longer, even if it was your favorite costume. Just say goodbye, say thank you for the beautiful time and throw it away.
The clothing that can be repaired on the other hand needs a place to be collected. This can be a small box or a bag where you can keep all the pieces until you have time to repair them.
3. Deal with worn-once clothes
When you had a very light dance practice, maybe you were working on your techniques and you think your clothes can be worn again, designate a spot in your dance bag or your closet for those kind of items.
One method would be, to hang them with the hanger facing backwards on the rod. The clothes can air out and you know exaclty which clothes are worn and which are fresh.
To use up your clean clothes more efficiently, I suggest you to wear the worn-once pieces right again the next dance practice.
If you have too many of those in your closet it can get quite messy. Keep it simple and integrate an already worn piece in your outfit for dance class the next day.
4. Manage smelly laundry
If you sweated a lot in dance class and have completely wet dance clothes, you should hang them on the inside-out to dry before putting them into the laundry humper. Sweaty clothes can develop mould and mildew. And it’s hard to wash that out after.
Especially synthetic fabrics tend to become smelly, even after you washed them. An easy trick to fight this problem is to put them in a sealed plastic bag into the freezer before washing. The cold will eliminate the smells and bacteria and after are good to wash them.
You might also want to use a special sport detergent. It helps to eliminate tough odours and to sanitise activwear from germs and bacteria.Personally I like the antibacterial laundry cleanser additive from Dettol. It works just fine for all my dance and gym clothes.
5. Create a laundry system that works
The most important thing of creating a working laundry system is organisation.
You might already know that you should not throw all of your laundry together in the washing mashine. Each fabric and colour has it’s own needs. The same is true for sports clothes vs. everyday clothing.
Activewear made of polyamid, polyester and elastane should be washed on the inside-out in cold water (up to 40 degrees). You want to avoid the usage of fabric-softeners and machine drying to preserve the materials elasticity. Let your dance and gym clothes air dry instead.
To prevent the clothes from getting damaged in the washing machine, you can use mesh laundry bags.
Extra Tip: No socks will be eaten by the machine if you put them all together in one bag.
The right laundry hamper
Since you might want to wash your dance clothes seperately, it totally makes sense to designate a laundry hamper only for your activewear.
Once you sorted out the clothes of your dance bag, you will just have to put them all together in the right laundry basket and you are done until laundry day.
A little pro tip from me is to buy a laundry basket you can keep at an easy accessible spot. I once had my laundry basket hidden in the closet and never put my clothes in there because it was just too much of an effort to access it.
Conclusion
Now you know everything you need to fight and win over the laundry monster.
Even if your motivation is super high now to insert all of these tips in your daily routine, remember that it takes time to build habits.
It is totally fine, if you want to start first by unpacking your dance bag on a daily basis. Already this little habit can make a great impact. And everything else follows
Just remeber you are doing this for yourself.
Ready, set, wash!
