Super General Advice (the thread for advice without making a thread)

Thank you, I shall try that


Have a mother besieged by youths as an expression of my gratitude

 

couple quick dumb hygiene questions

Spoiler

First off, how often should I be washing my pillowcases? What about the pillows themselves? (And in the case of the latter, every time I've washed them their 'guts' end up all out of order and it takes me a long-ass time to wrestle them back into alignment, any tricks for avoiding or dealing with that?)

Second, what kind of soap do you use in the shower with a loofah? (Don't worry, I shower regularly, it's just that the attention I pay to my body beside idly running a random bar over it is nil and I'm thinking about picking up a loofah and doing it Properly) Do you just use a bar, or is it more like something of a shampoo consistency that you put on the loofah and use to scrub? And are there soaps that are inclined to help a little with oily skin?

 

Pillowcases as often as you wash your sheets, preferably at least once a month. Pillows like... once they lose their fluff and can be bent in half without immediately flopping back over. Tennis balls in the dryer help with the filling issue.

 

Pillowcases should be done at least one time per week (more often if you have oily skin/acne), but the pillows themselves can go a few months; at least twice a year is the number I've seen. I don't know about the lumpiness but I've seen someone suggest dryer balls, or a tennis ball in a sock, on the lowest possible dryer setting.

Rubbing a bar of soap on a loofah works, as does shower gel. I haven't sought out any body washes made specially for oily skin, but Neutrogena and Dove apparently make them, and Google can probably find more.

 

Ime, liquid soaps work better with loofahs than solid soaps; they foam up easier, and you can get more coverage with them. LUSH has a range of soaps, some of them designed for specific skin issues, but they're pricey and boutique, so... Looking up specific specialty soaps is a good idea, but also looking up ingredients better for oily skin--tea tree oil has always treated me right, and I've heard good things about coconut based soaps and moisturizers.

 

I just toss my pillowcases in whenever I'm doing the rest of my laundry. :::PPP

 

For pillows themselves the best practise is probably never, especially if they're down and feather. You can air them on sunny days and the UV will get rid of any nasties - or buy a UV treatment lamp if you're super paranoid. Pillow protectors (heavy duty tight-weave case inners) get washed once every 8 weeks or so, cases every week.

Lemongrass oil soap is good for skin balancing and reduces redness, or tea tree, as mentioned. Rosemary is also good if you have breakouts or are prone to skin infections.

 

@jacktrash Our washer and dryer are a different configuration than that (on its side vertically, and there's no central 'pillar' bit), would that method still work for pillows?

 

so i'm gonna give the super crazy answer for pillow cases

i don't anymore, because moving cross country and out of family home, but my family had enough pillow cases that i changed my pillow case roughly every other day at a minimum. technically i was supposed to change them every day. then all the pillow cases just got washed with the regular laundry once a week. this isn't strictly necessary, but as someone who is Literally Severely Allergic To Anything That Isn't Food, and who also had really bad acne, constantly changing the pillow cases cut down on both sweat/skin flakes/skin oil building up on the pillow cases and causing break outs, and allergens.

i haven't been doing this since moving to iowa, and tbh i am dying, my acne has literally never looked this bad since like the worst years of puberty for me.

i'll totally grant though, this is more than a little bit extreme. i think the key to doing this realistically is having enough pillow cases that you can change them out that frequently without having to wash them for fear of running out. if you only have four pillow cases, and you have two pillows, you really can't do this.

as for pillows, i have actually never washed mine, but i do keep them in a hypoallergenic pillow case underneath a normal pillow case.

re: pillow washing method, i don't think sticking just two in would work, because the key is having enough pillow that they don't move around too much, but not so much that it can't wash effectively. my best guess for washing them in a front loading washer is to wash them with a blanket, or an extra pillow - enough to give it enough volume that things will mostly stay where they are relative to each other while being swirled around, if that makes sense.

 

On a tangent, although this is more a “for future reference” thing—does anyone know how to clean memory foam, if that’s even possible at all?

Spoiler: vomit cw

I once got very sick to my stomach and was unable to avoid vomiting all over my old memory foam pillow. I made the mistake of tossing it in the washer out of desperation, which, obviously, completely wrecked the pillow. It pretty much fell apart, in fact. Had to be replaced. :(

 

Fill up the bathtub with a little bit of gentle detergent and lukewarm water and work the detergent through the foam while completely submerging the pillow, then gently squeeze out the water until the water is running clear. Let dry somewhere flat for ~24 hours.

 

Does anyone have a link or a few to the current tumblr photoset dimensions? Trying to get back into making gif sets ^^"

 

Does anyone here do lucid dreaming, and if so, what method works for you? I've never been able to get it to work and I want to try.

 

i don't usually lucid dream intentionally (as in, i don't normally go to sleep intending to lucid dream), but i have lucid dreamed a fair amount. one method i've seen that has (accidentally) worked for me is to wake up normally -- especially like, without an alarm, just waking up naturally; then stay awake for a little bit but stay in bed (unless you need to use the restroom/etc.), and then fall back asleep. for whatever reason, i tend to be more likely to lucid dream when i do this.

(for obvious reasons this is best done when you don't have work/school/etc. that day.)

 

Looking for more book recs; this time, I need steampunk and gaslamp fantasy with strong antagonists. My bad guy's plan in the story idea I have doesn't work, so I need to find a new one for him, and to make that happen I need to research the genre. (I hasten to add I won't be plagiarising, I just need to closely examine some examples of what kind of things a bad guy in that setting might do.)

 

Was looking for a thread to ask for book recs and this one comes up first... I'd also like book recs. If there's a better thread for this, let me know.

1) I haven't read much of any good gay fiction focused in a fantasy or sci-fi setting. Anyone have any in mind?
2) Any stories that have a good abuse narrative (axis of abuse isn't super important, can be familial, peer, spousal, etc). My one requisite is the person dealing with abuse isn't killed.

 

I don't have a lot of good recs myself, but book recs thread.

 

@LadyNighteyes thank you!