Did you know that even the appliances in your home that are intended to clean things can get dirty themselves? Even though your washing machine gets your clothes nice and clean, the machine itself needs some love on occasion. And when it does need some cleaning up, all you need to do is reach into your medicine cabinet. Take a look to see what you’ll be grabbing in there, and learn FIVE more amazing laundry hacks. And don’t worry about missing any of them—we’ve got them all outlined for you after the video.

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Did you catch all of those? Let’s recap those 6 awesome laundry tips and tricks!

1. Salt your jeans.
   
   
   The trickiest item of clothing we all need to take care of just might be our jeans. Fashion experts often tell us to never, ever wash them, saying a typical washing can damage the denim, make the precious indigo color fade, and cause the jeans to lose their shape. While we appreciate the need to protect our garments, we care about hygiene a lot, and the idea of never washing a piece of our clothing is just . . . gross. So what to do? Protect your jeans with a salt bath! Simply mix 1 cup of water with 1 cup of salt in a basin or large bowl – it should, obviously, be large enough to hold a pair of jeans – and gently massage the jeans in the saltwater. The salt will help the color set and prevent it from fading!
2. Freeze your jeans.
   
   
   Another germ-killing, jean-preserving alternative? Put your jeans in the freezer overnight! Slide them into a plastic zip-top bag first – we don’t want the jeans actually, you know, touching any food in there – and just stick them in your freezer. The freezing temperatures will kill any germs, and, according to Levi’s CEO Chip Bergh, stop any unpleasant smells in their tracks.
3. Use cold water.
   
   
   Is your laundry instinct to put everything on the warm, or even hot, setting automatically? While that’s ideal for things like towels or sheets, for our clothing – especially more delicate pieces – we want to be a little gentler. The answer? Cold water! Washing your clothing on the cold setting will help prevent shrinking and colors from bleeding and running. Bonus— your hot water bill will go down!
4. Recruit your hair dryer.
   
   Don’t have an iron? Traveling and your hotel room doesn’t have one? Simply don’t feel like going through the process of setting up the ironing board and filling the iron with water? Use your hair dryer! Just turn it on blast and aim it at the wrinkles in your shirts and pants. The hot air will smooth them out and make the wrinkles disappear.
5. Preserve colors.
   
   
   You don’t need specially-formulated store-bought detergents to preserve the colors of your clothing—you just need to raid your pantry! Adding the right ingredient during the rinse cycle will keep your whites bright and your colors vibrant. For whites, add 1 cup of vinegar during the rinse cycle. For dark colors, add a cup of salt!
6. Clean the washing machine itself.
   
   
   And here it is: the way to make sure the machine that cleans your clothes is clean itself! The secret? Mouthwash! Add just half of a cup of mouthwash to your empty machine, then run a rinse cycle. Your machine will be clean and disinfected, so easily.

So smart! Who would have thought that things like mouthwash, salt and vinegar were the key to clean clothes?! Did you know any of these tricks already? What are some of YOUR favorite laundry tips and tricks?