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Of all my random belongings, I never thought the one I’d be most grateful for during the coronavirus pandemic would be…this salad spinner ($21, Amazon). But these unprecedented times are just full of surprises, right?
Let me back up. As is pretty standard in New York City, where I live, I don’t have laundry machines in my apartment, or even in my building. So as you can imagine, this whole laundry thing has become somewhat complicated in recent months. It wouldn’t be a huge issue, given that I’m wearing the same three pairs of sweatpants on rotation and consequently don’t have a ton of laundry, but even during a pandemic, I still need a steady supply of clean underwear. And I can safely say that I want to wash my underwear a lot more frequently than I want to brave my local laundromat during a pandemic (even if I have this guide on how to do laundry while protecting myself from the coronavirus).
Enter my trusty salad spinner.
For those unfamiliar with the mechanics of a salad spinner (no judgment—I’ve never used it for its actual purpose of [checks notes] spinning salad), it’s essentially like a little washing machine. It’s a small tub with an inner basket to hold your leafy greens/intimate underthings. Before diving in, you can do some presoaking or scrubbing if you’re dealing with stains. Once you throw your underwear, water, and a liiittle bit of soap inside, you can use the handle to gently rotate the contents around in the soapy water. Pretty much like a washing machine cycle.
After a while you can pour out the soapy water, replace it with fresh water, and repeat the process until the water runs clear and suds-free. At the end, empty out the remaining water and use the spinner to whirl your underwear around until it’s partly dry to make air-drying easier (and make sure to dump out excess water as you go). Then dry your underwear flat or toss it over your shower rod like I do to finish drying. Voilà.
There are a ton of salad spinners out there, and picking one might be a matter of personal taste, but there are two factors to keep in mind. First, whether it has a spinning handle or a pump button. I prefer the handle because it allows me to put more weight and control behind it—I can’t vouch for whether the pump button can handle anything weightier than salad. Second, I looked for a spinner with an easy-access spout that allows you to add and drain water without removing the lid, which also comes in extra handy for my purposes.
If you’re wondering why I don’t just use my sink, good question. For one, I can be kind of a slob, and my sink isn’t always clean enough to use as a washing bin. The salad spinner also helps with the drying process. Unless you want to wring out your panties and stretch them out weirdly (I don’t), the best way to dry your freshly washed, sopping-wet undergarments is to let them hang dry for a lot longer or gently roll them up in a towel to squeeze out excess water. But I’m trying to give myself less laundry to do, not more, so I prefer to leave my towels out of it. Plus, the salad spinner is also just kind of fun to use. It’s not that deep!
Is washing my underwear in a kitchen gadget my first choice? Not really, but hey, desperate times call for desperate measures, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t coming in handy. So I wanted to pass it on in case it helps another laundry-machine-less, underwear-wearing human out there.
If you’re sold, here’s where you can buy a salad spinner for your own at-home laundry adventures. The first one is mine, but I threw in some other options just in case:
