S/o Coping: Washing tzitzis

amother

OP ↓

Sun, Nov 24 2024, 2:20 pm

All the coping threads got me thinking. I feel like I've made a lot of progress and my house is really run well at this point. Linens get washed, laundry gets folded, etc. Definitely an improvement.

Except tzitzis. I have a really hard time washing my son's tzitzis and keep pushing it off. How often do I need to do this for it to be fair to him? He has quite a few pairs. Maybe if I had a hard number and it wasn't too overwhelming I could be on top of that also.

Also, I never wash Yarmulkes - is that also normal?

amother

Impatiens

Sun, Nov 24 2024, 2:28 pm

I haven't washed a kappel in 11 months because I never found it in the dirty laundry. If it needs to be cleaned, he should put it in the hamper.

Tzitzis I clean every 7 days. If not, it is hard to get the stains out. I don't even know how my husband's tzitzis become stained, but they do. Even though he always has a vest and a rekel. They aren't so difficult to clean. I spray the stains with shout and then I soak in lestoil for 30-45 minutes. I take out and spray with iron out. If I still see any discoloration I will soak in iron out for 10-15 minutes. If they look nice, I will wash on delicate. If not, I'll soak them in milk. It doesn't require I do very much except for set a timer so I do it at a time I know I'll be home.

amother

Marigold

Sun, Nov 24 2024, 2:48 pm

Kippah, my husband gets a new one usually every haircut. 6-8 weeks. He claims you can already see it's old. -im just glad it's not every 4 weeks like he did when we got married.
My son is 5 he has a whole bunch of cheap ones and I never wash them. I can see on others who put there kippah in the machine they start to not look so great very quick.
When it starts looking bad I put it at the bottom of the pile for emergencies. His first kippah after his Chalaka was expensive and I washed it, it looked terrible, wasn't wearable -learnt from my expensive mistake!!!

DH whenever I find tzitzit when doing a white wash I put them in - he wears cotton.
DS 2-3 times a week I put it in the hamper (summer usually more often) and it gets washed with the kids white wash. He wears cotton or vest tzitzit.

imaima

Sun, Nov 24 2024, 3:33 pm

amother OP wrote:

Like any laundry, the frequency depends on how many you have.
The point is not to wash often enough, the point is to have tzitzis.
And really tzittis and yarmulke should not be equal with food and bathing. CPS won’t take your kids away if these items are not up to par

amother

Bronze ↓

Sun, Nov 24 2024, 3:43 pm

Okay, I'm going to admit it (anonymously, of course).

I have several boys, and I don't wash their tzitzis. Or yarmulkes. Ever.

Why? Because when we first got married, my husband told me he'd wash his own tzitzis when they needed to be washed. I bought him a bottle of Woolite for this purpose. It never got used. At some point I asked him about it, and he said that wool tzitzis can just be left to "air out" and don't need to be washed...Being a newly-married woman who felt that she had to right this wrong, I got instructions from someone on how to wash tzitzis in Woolite, and they looked fine to me, but he thought I had ruined them and asked me to please not wash them again.

When my oldest son got his first pair of tzitzis, I decided to do a lot of research before washing them. THey were cotton after all, so they didn't fit dh's "wool doesn't need to be washed" rule. Life was busy, so they didn't get washed as often as they should have, but when they did I tried several different "tricks" -- including store-bought tzitzis savers, a knee high, and some others. No matter what I did, they looked "old" after I washed them once. As the boys got older, they would kvetch whenever I washed their tzitzis.

It took several years of very infrequent attempts to wash them until I finally gave up. So yes. Their tzitzis don't get washed.

Yarmulkes--when they were little and they got very dirty, we found these "washable yarmulkes" that washed well. Black velvet and all. They don't make them anymore, and my now-bochrim do not like for them to be washed. They'lll sometimes wet them slightly if they fall in the dirt. That's all.

Let the tomato-throwing begin.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Sun, Nov 24 2024, 7:53 pm

amother Bronze wrote:

You think it's okay? I used to almost never wash linnen unless it looks dirty and learned from here that that's not okay. So now I wash all my linen once a month.

My son has like four pairs and I rotate them. Of course, if they're really dirty I wash them but he does wear them everyday. I just don't want him to be that dysfunctional dirty kid. All of his other clothes is fresh everyday.

amother

Firethorn

Sun, Nov 24 2024, 8:04 pm

amother OP wrote:

Linen is different, we sleep on/in it.

I also hardly wash tzitzis. It's hard to remember because they wear them every day!

amother

Hosta ↓

Sun, Nov 24 2024, 8:49 pm

My boys wear cotton undershirt tzitzis- so it’s against their skin with nothing underneath. That means if they’re sweaty, the tzitzis are sweaty. Our rule is that they change them on the nights they shower, which is every other day (unless they had a particularly sweaty day, then they’re showering every day and Tzitzis are getting changed). Works for us- I wash all their tzitzis once a week together with their white shirts.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Sun, Nov 24 2024, 9:06 pm

amother Hosta wrote:

How don't they get ruined? I hand wash them or it's a huge job fixing the strings.

amother

↑ Hosta ↓

Sun, Nov 24 2024, 9:12 pm

amother OP wrote:

How don't they get ruined? I hand wash them or it's a huge job fixing the strings.

So it took me a lot of trial and error but I finally settled on a method that works. I use a knee high stocking to wrap the strings - I take three pairs of Tzitzis together on my arm, let all the strings hang down evenly and then gather them up, put them into a knee high stocking, then tie it in a knot. Then place the whole Tzitzis bundle into a mesh bag and zip it shut and throw into the wash. Works beautifully.

Tao

Sun, Nov 24 2024, 9:38 pm

amother Firethorn wrote:

Linen is different, we sleep on/in it.

I also hardly wash tzitzis. It's hard to remember because they wear them every day!

Um hello? Is it only me who has little boys, or do your boys magically go from pre-upsherin to adults?
As for my boys....I have seen the state of their bathroom. I have had the sincere misfortune of using their toilet on occasion. They do not take their tzitzis off when they use the bathroom. In short, their tzitzis get washed every single day. I don't even want to think about where they have been.
(They don't last very long, probably about half a year. I buy cheap tzitzis. But my boys also play with their tzitzis, get the strings caught in their bikes, and chew on them or absentmindedly pull them out with their teeth, so I doubt it's the washing alone that does it. My washing machine is super gentle and I use a tzitzis guard and laundry bag.)

busymamma

Yesterday at 12:50 pm

I have a 3 year old boy, I change and wash his tzitzis and "kappel" every time I bathe him, like every 1 or 2 days. I am not a clean freak but this is the one hygiene thing I'm strict about.
I wash it with the blue hard magen tzitzit from amazon which doesn't keep the strings looking brand new but does a pretty good job of controlling the ravelling. (its hidden in his pants for most Wink

of the time anyways)
Hubbys stuff gets washed whenever I find it in the hamper...

amother

↑ Bronze

Yesterday at 1:37 pm

amother OP wrote:

Do I think it's okay? Let's just say that these little boys are now teenagers, some of whom are very particular about their clothing, shoes, etc. And they don't seem to think it's strange, including one who very conscious of not being different, and lives in a dorm. I'm sure he'd have let me know. My kids don't smell (if they did, I'd change something).

Do I think if I looked at a tzitzis string under a microscope I would see that theirs have more dirt on them than those that are washed every night? Sure. But it doesn't affect their everyday life, so I'm not making my life more complicated because of a theoretical gross-ness.

But then again, I'm sure I don't wash linens enough either. (I do wash clothing every day, mostly because otherwise I'd have to check it, or my kids would walk out with huge stains on them.) I also don't make the beds in my house -- I have one son who likes his made, so he makes it himself. The others, nebach, don't even know what climbing into a freshly-made bed feels like. But my kids are clean and taken care of. Probably more so than if I spent my time washing tziztzis and linens, honestly, since I have the time and headspace to sit and shmooze with them and respond calmly to their many needs!

Sorry for the ramble, just thinking "out loud" here...

amother

Charcoal

Yesterday at 2:40 pm

I don't wash yarmulkes. Ever. Those that by mistake end up in the wash get ruined and used for sleeping.
I buy 1 or 2 new ones every 6 months.
My three year olds wool tzizis get washed all the time, hand washed, no wring, drip dry.
My husband has a few pairs, I was them every few weeks or so.
My preteen boys barely put them in the laundry basket, I buy new ones every 6 months and they alternate. They don't like when I wash them they say that it makes the wool feel Stiff