The fact that the simple stuff works, that's the part that makes me happiest, is that you can find safe alternatives that work. I'm not going to be like, ,Yeah, I'm going to iron this shirt, but first, I'm going to fill it with sodium lauryl sulfate.’ That doesn't resonate with me.
What a simple act to make such a big impact. He stands a little taller, and he looks a little better. It makes me very, very happy to iron a shirt for my husband. A huge part of my whole approach is you do laundry for people that you love. I want the cleanest ingredients possible because I want clean things for myself, but I also want clean things because they work. Then technology allows us to have a myriad of products, but all of a sudden, we can't wash half of our wardrobe. I think it's really funny that they maintained everything using very simple products, just because they didn't have anything else. They were able to maintain all of these clothes. Right? The Victorians are why we love cashmere and why we love silk. Victorians didn't have grocery stores that had all these weirdo chemicals. I think of them as being green, but I also think of them as being practical. When she started talking, I don't think she realized how green I wanted everything to be. Finally, Karin, who helped me write the book, approached me. A producer approached me about a TV show, which was The Laundry Guy. More and more people became curious and I started teaching laundry camp. I started telling people that they didn’t need to dry clean and I started carrying safer products in my store. My suit reeked of dry cleaning fluid and I realized at that very moment that my suit was a patch covering my entire body and full of dry cleaning fluid. It doesn't just go, I'm just going to take this in and I'm not going to take that in.
I saw the patch on his shoulder as he was putting his shirt on and something struck me in that exact moment that your body isn't selective. I was putting on a suit to go to a wedding and my partner was trying to stop smoking at the time, and he was using the patch. But I would still send my suits to the dry cleaner, just because I want to press them. All the plastic bags, wire hangers, I mean, it's Joan Crawford's nightmare. Four days later, you get back in the car, try to dig for that slip, pay an obscene amount of money. The thing about going to the dry cleaner is you have to put the clothes in a bag, carry them to the car, get in the car, drive to the dry cleaner, get out of the car, lug them in, get them all logged in, get the slip, put it in your wallet, go back to the car, go back home. So I started telling customers, ‘Well, you can wash it and here's how.’ It led me down the path of what is dry cleaning doing? I already washed a lot of things just for the practical side, because I didn't want to have to go to the dry cleaner. So I was going to counteract that right off the bat. I was not thinking about toxin free, I will tell you, I was thinking about one of the biggest arguments that people have when they go to buy something is they think they have to dry clean it and they don’t want to have to do that. It was a store full of designer vintage, and I carried a few laundry products. And then, nine years ago, I opened my store and it was called Mona Williams, named after Mona. I’ve worked for Niemann Marcus and Nordstrom. That got me thinking about the conservation of it because you want that stuff to last another 100 years. Mona von Bismarck, Mona Williams, when she was named best dressed woman in the world in 1933, left her entire wardrobe to the University of Kentucky.
Through high school I was really into clothes and went to college, and wanted to go into fashion and ended up getting into textiles. When I turned three, Santa brought me a toy washing machine and it was incredible. Patric: One of my earliest memories is handing my granny clothespins to put clothes on the clothesline and I fell in love with laundry. Megan: Welcome to the podcast Patric, I am so excited to have you! So can you tell me a little bit about your history and how you came to write Laundry Love?
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