You may be wondering what mildew spores have to do with self-care.

Well, let me tell you that they have a lot to do with self-care—even more than the awful smell mildew creates. But sometimes you can’t smell mildew because it can become that black mold that is deadly for your health.

I want to share a story with you because I’m sure this has happened to most of us when we do the laundry.

Have you ever forgotten about a load of clothes that you washed, only to come back to them a day later (after a hot summer day) and realize that you forgot about them? And the smell alone—you know for sure when you open up the washing machine and smell the mildew that has started to settle into the fibers of your clothes, you’ve done it.

Well, I did just that the other day. Heck, I even put them in the dryer hoping somehow that the smell would go away.

My daughter Jessica started to fold the clothes, and all she could say was, “Ewww mom, these clothes smell BAD!”

I decided that we weren’t going to throw those clothes away…I mean, after all we paid good money for those threads. I went to my laptop and Googled “how to get mildew out of clothes“. To my dismay, there was a breadth of information to digest mentally. Being the holistic practitioner that I am, I looked for the simplest and most benign solution for the environment and for our clothes. I found one that resonated with me: for every one gallon of water, put one cup of baking soda in it and soak the clothes overnight in this solution. I did just that and I decided to add a few drops of melaleuca (tea tree oil) into the solution as well, since I know that lavender or melaleuca oil can kill mildew spores. 

The next morning, I turned on the washing machine with the baking soda solution and when the rinse cycle came on, I put about ten drops of melaleuca oil into the washing machine. After the clothes dried, the mildew smell was all gone…like there was never any sign of it.

Since I am an energy healer and clear spaces all the time, what I have learned is that it would be best to add either lavender or melaleuca oil to the rinse cycle of your laundry to not only ensure that you don’t have mildew, but to just rid your clothes or laundry of any dark energy that doesn’t serve you.

Be well, and hoocha (bad energy) begone! Isn’t mildew kinda bad energy anyway?