On our first day here, my husband and I bought basic necessities, like laundry detergent. I relied on him to make sure we got the right stuff. For example, I wanted dye free, perfume free detergent for the boys' laundry. We got something for "sensitive" skin and we've been using it since (re-purchasing the same stuff when we run out).
Unfortunately, it does not seems to get stains out. The boys get their clothes VERY messy - food, spit-up, leaky diapers, etc. I always pretreat the stains, but since we have been here, the stains haven't come out. I thought perhaps it was because some of their new solids just stain, period. I also considered that maybe I had put too many clothes in the tiny washer/dryer combo. Or, maybe I had let some of it sit too long. No matter what I did, or changed, the stains stuck. Perhaps I am picky, but I don't want my boys' entire wardrobe to be covered in all sorts of unsightly stains.
So the last time I went to the store, I studied the options. Unlike back home, there is not an entire aisle of laundry detergent - maybe just a 2 foot by three foot space on the shelf with a few options. The one we had been using (seemed) to really emphasize softness. (I have to rely on the pictures, and the few German words that closely correspond to English since I can't read the product description in German.) Hmmm... I tried to find one that emphasized stain removal. I found one and it was about three times the cost of our "usual" detergent. It has "oxy" for stain removal (that's about all I understood). I started to wonder though if we had been using fabric softener (a product that I don't normally use back home, for no particular reason). I asked my husband if we had possibly been using fabric softener and he said he didn't think so. I then asked him to study the new stuff I bought to make sure that it didn't contain bleach or anything I couldn't use on colored clothes. He said it should be fine, but it was not actual detergent, but an additive to use with regular detergent. He then (finally) took the time to study our usual detergent.
"Yeah, this might actually be fabric softener." Are you kidding???? So many clothes had been ruined with stains because my husband had just grabbed something from the shelf without confirming it was laundry detergent. In other words, this was not a mistake that happened because of a language issue on his end, but because he grabbed it in haste. Hello! I don't speak German! I need him to actually read what it is we are buying to know it's the right stuff. Ugh!!!!
Today, we finally got laundry detergent. I think. Wish me luck that our clothes come out clean - not stained, discolored, or shrunk.
Coming next: guest blog from my husband on Istanbul and a blog about our recent trip to a German Wine Festival.
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