The problem with buying nice things is that you continually fear losing them or ruining them (one of the reasons Coco Chanel advised wearing costume jewelry over the real thing). My "nice" things include several high-maintenance cashmere cardigans (one of them just had its seventh birthday last week) -they pill, buttons pop off, they consistently endure wine and chocolate stains, but I love them and in the end, it's worth it to me to wash them by hand, comb them, and repair pulled threads.

I've used lots of gentle cleaners, including baby shampoo, but my favorite so far is the cedar-scented Wool and Cashmere Shampoo from the Laundress. It's not cheap, but you don't need to use much, and unlike dry-cleaning, which can disintegrate fibers, a gentle wash-and-lay-flat-to-dry preserves the fabrics' integrity so it lasts longer and stays softer - which, well, is kinda the point with cashmere. It also, of course, saves me the $10 dry-cleaning fee.

If you've got any amazing natural laundry tips that the world needs to know about, please share in the blog!

-Jenifer Morgan...off to chuck my less-nice things in the washer...

Once again, I have a pile of drycleaning that has been building up for like 6 months.  God, but I hate the whole thing.  As of late, I honestly just don't buy things if they can't be washed at home, in the washing machine.

Of course, now that I have a big ole bag of cleaning that I need to take into a perc-free service, I am feeling a bit nervous - maybe I should take it in in stages just in case something happens to the cleaners? (I tend to have really bad luck with cleaners...)

-Heather... off to throw a load of laundry in the machine (wet cleaning, thank you very much)...

I am this low maintenance person (well, in most ways) that can't be bothered with hairstyles (hence, the Marcia Bradey look for most of my life) and am known for taking the simplest route when it comes to personal and home care. 

For clothing care, I can't remember home rememedies to get stains out, like wine and grease, of which I seem to have a preponderance of stains. So I just press my luck and hope that the normal clothes washing gets the stain out, and then if not, I use the clothing for riding / workout gear, or take it to Good Will.

Well, knowing that we had this tip coming up, I bought some EcoCover stain remover, and gave it a really hard test.  I had dropped some greasy food on my favorite pants - then washed and dried them - but ALAS they came out with the grease stain still.  (Great, baked in now due to the dryer.) 

So I pretreated them with the EcoCover stuff, and scrubbed for 20 seconds with the plastic bristles that come as the top part of the big stick of the stuff. And VOILA! stains are gone.

I just sent word to our editorial team that I would love if they could add this recommendation to today's tip if not too late... we shall see if they are sober and can get it included.  If not, give Eco Cover a try if you can't rememember good home remedies or can't be bothered, like me.

Off to a 4th of July rodeo in Livingston...  Jen

Heather and I are great partners... we barely overlap, hence we are pretty complimentary. However, the two things main things on which we agree:

1. George Clooney is hot.
2. Doing laundry is therapeutic - we love the process, we love the smell, we love the warm clothes after.

Yes, there are a few more similarities like the obvious (love of cheese, chocolate, wine), but after that, honestly, we are divinely divergent.

So George.. be prepared to have us go to the mat for you. And then ask to do your laundry in the case you got a bit roughed-up in the tussle.

Off to stare at this month's Vanity Fair with my pretend Hollywood boyfriend on the cover - Jen

And I mean HOT. Hot, hot, hotties swinging by our Biter booth at all hours of the day. Sigh. Men of GreenFest, we salute you.

-Heather... off to wash all her GreenFest clothes, because believe me, they all do smell bad...

OK, so I was a little skeeved out to discover that fabric softener contains tallow, a form of animal fat.

Seeing how I am a raging red meat eater, this problem with tallow might come as a bit of a surprise. I mean, I'll EAT the stuff... so what is up with me having issues with putting it on my clothes?

But see, I like to roll around in my clean clothes - dump them all on the bed and stick my face in them and take a big whiff. There is something so soothing about the smell of clean laundry (even though that Snuggle Bear always scared the $&#% out of me). And while I might I associate the smell of a steak on a barbeque with summers in Montana and be perfectly fine with that, I really don't like the idea of associating the smell of my clean sheets with cow and sheep fat. Call me crazy. I know it is completely hypocritical.

So, lately - while still enjoying my meat-eating ways - I have been using the vegetable-oil based fabric softeners, and I have to say, I LOVE the lavender and clean air versions.

Perfect for rolling around in the clean clothes on my bed, thinking about fields of flowers instead of barnyards.

In 1998, I was living in Santa Monica, working for a startup internet company. I was working 18 hours a day, and I wasn't complaining. It was a rush to feel like I was on the vanguard of something huge. I had the standard inordinate amount of power for an early 20-something, and - although I had no real social life outside of work cocktails and conferences - I was enjoying myself.

The thing that was missing was time to get the real things of life done. I could never find time (even in convenience-laden LA) to do the errands and chores that make a life move forward. I don't remember being at a grocery store very much. My apartment was seldom cleaned.

And I never seemed to find time to take in or pick up my dry cleaning.

It became a joke. I had a stash in the corner of my office at work - a pile of clothes that I kept intending to take to the cleaners. I didn't want to leave it in my car (a rusty blue Toyota Corolla with one hubcap, a window that wouldn't roll down, a broken key in the ignition and 150,000 miles on it), because I was afraid a stack of clothing was the one thing in the car that would entice someone to steal it. After all - after a few months of this, all my favorite things were in there. The dress from Jeni that fit just so. The amazing soft black cardigan. The suits that were good for work but could still really work at cocktail parties when the jacket came off... So my dry-cleaning sat there, building up, waiting to be taken in.

One afternoon, in a fit of "I-can't-take-this-anymore-I-deserve-a-life" pique, I took the afternoon off, deciding to go ride my bike on the beach. On the way, I dropped my dry-cleaning off. It felt good to tick it off the list. It would be ready to pick up on Thursday.

Thursday night, I actually left work at a decent hour. I drove down Lincoln Blvd, past the drycleaners. I considered stopping. But I was tired and feeling lazy. I decided to get it over the weekend instead. Saturday came, and I decided that I should go pick up the cleaning. I drove down Lincoln, not sure what block the drycleaners was on, but knowing that I'd know it when I saw it.

I drove back and forth for about 30 minutes (no lie) before I realized that I WAS on the right block, and had been the entire time I was driving.

Well, as would only happen to me - when every nice piece of clothing I had ever had was there - my drycleaners burned down. To the GROUND. On Friday.

I could have picked up the clothes on Thursday.

I took it all as a sign and have tried to buy clothes that do not need cleaning ever since. I wash it all - rayon, silk... you name it. About the only things I get dry-cleaned are my winter coats, and even those go to the eco-cleaners now, because clearly, I have some bad dry-cleaning karma the needs to be cleansed.

-Heather... off to ponder what business suits look good but don't require cleaning for our upcoming meetings with potential funders...