A Chore No More A Chore No More

Thursday, April 18, 2012
A Chore No More
A laundry list of helpful, even playful, washday items
by TIM McKEOUGH
Robert Presutti for The New York Times
CLEAN CYCLE Stuart Leslie, a designer, examines the Fern laundry hamper at Crate & Barrel on the Upper East Side; about $40.
S
TUART LESLIE is an industrial designer who has helped develop a surprisingly broad range of consumer products, from home appliances to the packaging for single servings of Heinz ketchup.
But “laundry has been near and dear to my heart since I started,” said Mr. Leslie, 49, president of 4sight inc., a
design firm in Manhattan.
“My first project out of school was tackling liquid Tide.”
At the time, he was a designer with Deskey, where he helped create a drip-free bottle. “The big sell was the drain-back
spout,” he said, which kept the detergent from being “too messy and inconvenient.”
More recently, he has helped design clothes irons for Conair and next-generation washers and dryers for Samsung and
LG. Like many of us, he has noticed that laundry products are changing, to cater to our harried lives.
Even the preferred location for washing machines has shifted, he noted.
“It used to be out of sight, out of mind, put it in the basement,” he said. “Now it’s a laundry room right off the kitchen,” which
gives the task — and all its accessories — more attention.
In search of laundry gear that looks good enough to put on display, Mr. Leslie visited the Container Store in Chelsea, where
he was immediately drawn to the Sparrow Clips, bird-shaped clothespins in bright colors.
“When you do laundry, there’s not a lot of joy,” he said. But playful clips will “bring a smile to your face.”
From a practical perspective, he liked the Sock Cop clips, which hold pairs of socks together “so the washer doesn’t eat
your socks.” (“I asked Samsung where they go,” he said, referring to the stray socks that disappear during laundry, but no
one had a good answer.)
Across the street, at Bed Bath & Beyond, he found another playful laundry aid: Kikkerland Hedgehog dryer balls, spiky little
things that help fluff fabric and control static.
At Crate & Barrel on the Upper East Side, he liked the portable Fern laundry hamper. With the top flaps closed, it’s a
normal hamper with a hole for tossing clothes inside; flip the flaps up, and they become handles, and “you can just grab it
to transfer your laundry” to another room, he said.
He liked the Laundry Pod at Gracious Home because it was almost as portable. A small hand-powered washing machine, it
reminded him of an oversize salad spinner. It’s a “simple, great idea,” Mr. Leslie said, that is ideal for small apartments, or
small loads of laundry.
And because of the manual labor required, he added, “you’ll really feel like you’ve accomplished something.”
Kikkerland Hedgehog dryer balls; about $7
for a set of two at Bed Bath & Beyond.
Sparrow Clips
clothespins; about $4
for a package of four at the
BraBaby bra protector; about $10
Container Store, (888) 266-8246,
at Bed Bath & Beyond,
containerstore.com.
(800) 462-3966, bedbathandbeyond.com.
Laundry Pod
hand-operated
clothes washer; about
$100 at Gracious Home.
Laurastar
Rowenta compact iron;
about $40 at
Williams-Sonoma,
Magic i-S6 ironing system;
about $2,500 at Gracious Home,
(800) 338-7809, gracioushome.com.
(877) 812-6235,
williams-sonoma.com.
Sock Cop clips;
about $9 for a package of 20
at the Container Store.