See what you can learn on the go with the new Howcast App for iPhone and iPad: http://bit.ly/11ZmFOu Watch more Green Living Guide videos: http://www.howcast.com/guides/1192-Green-Living-Guide Subscribe to Howcast's YouTube Channel - http://bit.ly/uLaHRS Learn how to make your own laundry starch in this Howcast video featuring Alegre of Green and Greener. Howcast uploads the highest quality how-to videos daily! Be sure to check out our playlists for guides that interest you: http://bit.ly/ytmainplaylists Subscribe to Howcast's other YouTube Channels: Howcast Dance & Entertainment Channel - http://bit.ly/vmB86i Howcast Family Channel - http://bit.ly/16dz9oH Howcast Food & Drink Channel - http://bit.ly/umBoJX Howcast Personal Care & Style Channel - http://bit.ly/vbbNt3 Howcast Sports & Fitness Channel - http://bit.ly/vKjUjm Howcast Tech Channel - http://bit.ly/rx9FwR Howcast Video Games Channel - http://bit.ly/tYKKrk Howcast empowers people with engaging, useful how-to information wherever, whenever they need to know how. Emphasizing high-quality instructional videos, Howcast brings you experts who provide accurate information in easy-to-follow tutorials on everything from makeup, hairstyling, nail art design, and soccer to parkour, skateboarding, dancing, kissing, and much, much more. Hi Alegre from Ember Living here today to talk about how to make your own laundry starch and why you'd want to to begin with. First of all, laundry starch is fantastic in terms of making your clothes look really crisp and professional and it also helps give body back to clothes that may have lost body over time. So for instance, my little daughter's little summer hats, they get really floppy after you've washed them a lot, but if I just spray a little starch on them and iron them they're nice and crisp and they stay out of her eyes. Starching your clothes is also great because it helps keep your clothes cleaner. I have linen napkins that are years and years old, but you would never know it because I always starch them and then when the food stains get on them the starch actually acts as a barrier to keep the stains from getting on the fabric itself. So it washes out really easily. Now there's two ways you can make your own starch. One of the benefits of making your own starch is you can control how much starch you put on your clothing. But also, then you're not having to dispose of this big aerosol can, which is how most starch is sold. So there's two ways you can apply starch. First is as a sprayer. What you want to do is you want to mix one tablespoon of cornstarch, this is just regular corn starch like you buy at your grocery store, and two cups of cold water and mix it up until it's really well blended and then put it into a sprayer bottle. Make sure it's a good industrial strength sprayer bottle because some sprayer bottles the nozzles will get clogged with use. And you want to give it a good shake every time you spray. And literally, you'll just take your clothing or your napkin or whatever, just spray the starch on there and then just run your iron over it. Now one thing you'll have to do is you'll have to clean the bottom of your iron after use because starch will build up. And secondly, only make your starch right before you're going to use it because starch will go bad sitting in a sprayer bottle. The easier way to use starch and the way I like to use it most often is actually add it to a rinse cycle. So for instance, if I'm washing my linen napkins or my husband's dress shirts I'll wash them once and then I will put them through on a second rinse cycle and I will add starch into the machine at the rinse cycle. And when you're doing it that way you want to add two tablespoons to half a cup of water, mix it up really good and then just pour it in wherever your rinse cycle goes in. And that way you could avoid streaking. When you spray on starch, if you're not careful, it can leave starch streaks especially on colored fabric. On white fabric it won't matter because starch turns white, but if you want to avoid those starchy streaks just add it into your rinse cycle and then you can wash your clothes in the rinse cycle and iron them up and they'll be nice and starched and crisp and you won't have any of those streaks. So for more tips like these visit my website, EmberLiving.com.

• published: 28 Dec 2013
• views: 1045