Ask a Clean Person: Fair Is Fair — Get Rid of Your Ladies, Seriously, They Are Revolting

Please help me! I have long, thick, dark hair, and I shed like crazy when I style it. I usually employ a combination of vacuum, Swiffer WetJet, and mop in an attempt to address the stray hairs on my white tile floors. I have also (obviously) tried sweeping, but I find it does little to address the problem due to the volume of hairs. Further, the mopping makes the hairs stick to the tile with real tenacity. I feel like there are little tumbleweeds of hair blowing past my guests whenever I have visitors.

I am tired of feeling ashamed about this problem. Medically there is nothing wrong and alas I just seem to be a breed of human that sheds. Am I using the wrong cleaning products? Do I need to invest in a vacuum with better suction? Please help me! I am willing to throw some time, energy, and money at the problem, but I am unsure where to start.

Oh lady, I feel ya, I really, really do. I’ve got a headful of Rapunzel hair that just loves to detach itself from my head in favor of my bathroom floor. The best cure I can prescribe is a combination of hand-held vacuum and constant vigilance.

I’ve mentioned before that I use a Dirt Devil Kone vacuum, and I adore that little sucker. (Ha! Sorry.) I generally do a once-over on my bathroom floor every day/every other day, depending on how sheddy I’ve been and what I’ve got planned by way of homestead entertainment. They’re low enough profile that you can probably tuck it into a corner of your bathroom so it’s always right there on hand. And they come in lovely colors that you might be able to match to your toweling! How precious of you!

But really, any decent brand hand-held vac will do for you. What really won’t work are any of the wet products you’re using; they’ll just, as you’ve discovered, serve to adhere the hair further to the floor. And no one wants that. Dry Swiffers are an option, but honestly I don’t even like to talk about Swiffers, so if you go that route be a love and don’t mention it in my presence.

Jolie, please help. Please. It’s The Hairpin. We’re mostly full of ladies and dudes who are reasonable and don’t get super squicked out. So. For those times in the month when the lady parts are doing their lady thing, for the love of God how do I get dried bloodstains out of sheets/underwears/anywhere else applicable? I know it’s gross but oh man brown stains on stuff is way grosser, and my life would be 1000x better without them.

Aww sweetie, no need to rend your garments so! Who among us hasn’t had a leaky disaster? I’d bet that even the menfolk who hang around these parts have found a set of blood-stained sheets on their hands at one point in their lives. (Except for maybe the menfolk who sleep with other menfolk, I suppose.) The key thing is to get to it as soon as possible, first starting with a cold water flush. That will push through a goodly amount of the blood. Then you have a few treatment options:

Soap: Hand soap, bar soap, dish soap, shampoo, etc. will all work just fine. Apply a generous amount to the stain, rub the fabric together to work up a good lather and rinse with cold water.
Hydrogen peroxide: Soak the item in a bowl of hydrogen peroxide for 15–20 minutes and then launder on a cold water setting.
OxiClean: Pre-treat the stain with an Oxi product and then launder on a cold water setting.
Meat tenderizer: Sprinkle the stain with unseasoned meat tenderizer and add enough water to make a paste. Let that sit for 30 or so minutes and then rinse with cold water, and launder as usual. This a particularly good choice for set-in stains. So weird, right??
Spit: No really. Your own saliva will take out your own blood stain. I just … right, I don’t need to say what I think of this method, but if hocking loogies at your panties does it for you, by all means knock yourself out.

There are a whole host of other options too (ammonia, salt, incanting), so if you’ve got a method that works for you, let us know!

I know I should pull hair out of the bathroom sink post-blowdry/straighten/brush/etc., and usually do, but now my passive-aggressive strategy for dealing with my roommate’s hair in the sink is coming back to punish me. Sink karma? Draining is getting slower and slower and I know there’s hair because I can’t pull the stopper out, it’s all tied up in hair, and makes me feel sick looking at it. So I don’t think I would be able to handle pulling the hair out. I’ve tried the baking soda and vinegar job (yay green things!), twice, which speeds things up but doesn’t solve the problem completely. Is there something not completely detrimental to the earth that will melt the hair away? Can I pour Nair down the drain?

Mama, I have bad news for you: Drain cleaners can really only go so far; you need to snake that drain.

But because I love you, I’ll whisper to you behind my hand that Drano, even though it’s bad for old pipes and the environment, works 20 bazillion times better than baking soda/vinegar. So if you’re anything like me, by which I mean a woman who refuses to snake a drain (I’ll do a lot of gross things, but I have my own personal boundaries and I’m not ashamed of them), maybe try that out to see if it works before you get into the super grossy-gross work of snaking? Shhh. I said nothing. Pass it along.

From a preventative standpoint, if you’re a lady with a lot of hair that likes to fall out, you should plan to hit your pipes with baking soda and vinegar once every month/every other month. Yes it’s a pain in the ass to remember, but it will make your life so much better in the long run. Just a suggestion!

I’m a dude, personally, though that shouldn’t actually matter here. How can I go about getting mascara stains out of pillowcases? I’ve had this problem on more than one occasion, and I tend to just wash them over and over again (always on cold) and flip them over. The stains don’t seem to go away. Now the pillowcases that match my favorite (read: nicest non-flannel) sheets have the stains on both sides. I’m concerned that this could be off-putting for some imagined future sexytimes lady. I’m not a monster who gets off on making girls cry, I swear!

As a point of information, mascara comes off on pillowcases without the aid of tears. So I wouldn’t worry too much about new ladies thinking you’ve made old ladies cry, but I do think you’re right to be concerned that seeing another woman’s mascara stains is a pretty big turn off for most gals. So let’s help you out!

In general, when dealing with a fresh mascara stain you should do the following things:

1. Strip the pillowcase and flush the stain with cold running water. Sometimes that might even be enough!
2. If it’s not, apply a pre-wash stain treatment like Shout or OxiClean or whatever product you prefer.
3. Launder on a cold water setting.

Because you’ve washed and dried your linens and the stains are still there, we’re probably going to have to go a little deeper than that. Also, while I have you here: Please, for the ❤ of Bleachie, check your stained items to ensure that the blemish came out in the wash before you put them in the dryer. Heat sets a stain. Let me repeat that: HEAT SETS A STAIN. Don’t heat-dry stained items, okay? Okay!

We need some big guns for your set-in stains, and since mascara is oil-based we’ll return to the Holy Trinity of ammonia, Lestoil, and Pine Sol. Any one of these will do, your choice. (Not all mixed together, though!) Run your laundry with a cup of whichever one you’ve selected and/or pre-treat the stains. If that doesn’t do the trick, I’m sorry to tell you that you need new pillowcases, TearMonster.

I have some questions about underwear. I had a former coworker say you have to replace your entire stock of panties every three months, otherwise you’re gross and unsanitary. Is it true? I don’t replace my panties nearly that often, maybe yearly unless holes appear. Plus, I tend to keep a “B Team” of undies for that time of the month. How long should you hang on to panties before they need to be tossed, provided there are no holes or other issues?

Also, in order to keep things sanitary, what’s the best way to wash them? I’m comfortable bleaching the few pairs of white cotton panties I have, but it’s only me at home and I often don’t have enough laundry to do a whole whites-only wash. Most of my collection involves colors/patterns. Is washing in hot water and a run through the dryer enough to keep the team clean?

You know how I try to really keep it all about the question and not get into opining in these here parts? Right, so I’ll mostly stick to that except to ask if your coworker’s mother is Piper Laurie’s character from Carrie, because WOW that is some crazy thinking in re the vahine and its relative cleanliness. I have honestly never heard of such a thing! I’d be curious as to what our fine commentariette has to say about underwear replacement cycles!

Here’s my rule of thumb: Once a year, I take alllllllllll the underpants out of my underthings drawer, toss them on the bed, and begin sorting through them with one thought in mind, “Would I be embarrassed if someone else saw these?”

If the answer is yes, they go in the garbage. That can be because they’re dingy or stained, or holey, or stretched, or lacking entirely in elastic. Or just because they pinch my tush in a way that’s unpleasant to me! Life is too short for uncomfortable unders, ladies.

If the answer is maybe, they go in the Time Of The Month pile.

If the answer is no, they go in the Appropriate For Public Viewing pile.

Then, because I’m me, I fold and sort everything by type and color and place them lovingly back in my underthings drawer. You needn’t do that, but I sure would be happy to know if you do!

As for care of your frilly lacys, regular washing with detergent and a whirl through the dryer will suffice! If you’re a fancy lady with the attendant fancy undergarments that require special managing, hand washing will also do! If things start to develop a lingering odor, go ahead and use a cup of white vinegar in your wash, which will freshen your dainties right up.

Previously: Get Rid of Your Men, Get Rid of Your Cats.

Jolie Kerr is not paid to endorse any of the products mentioned in this column, but she sure would be very happy to accept any free samples the manufacturers care to send her way! Are you curious to know if she’s answered a question you have? Do check out the archives, listed by topic. More importantly: Is anything you own dirty?

Photo by Andrey Jitkov, via Shutterstock