How to Use a Clothes Steamer Properly, According to the Pros

If you need to de-wrinkle a dress shirt but don’t feel like breaking out your ironing board, a garment steamer can get the job done just as well… if you know the right way to use it. Clothing steamers use hot steam—typically 200 degrees or more—to smoo…

If you need to de-wrinkle a dress shirt but don’t feel like breaking out your ironing board, a garment steamer can get the job done just as well… if you know the right way to use it. Clothing steamers use hot steam—typically 200 degrees or more—to smooth out fabric and release wrinkles, and many people find them easier to use than irons, as there’s less risk of scorching your favorite clothes.

However, the best clothes steamers are only effective if you use them properly. If you don’t, you may end up with water splatter everywhere and just as many wrinkles as you started with. To ensure you get professional-grade results with your new garment steamer, we asked laundry experts Jonathon Reckles of CD One Price Cleaners and Alicia Sokolowski, president and co-CEO of AspenClean, for their best clothes steaming tips—here’s what they had to say.

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These 6 Halloween Décor Trends Are Going to Be *Everywhere* This Year

If you’re like me, you probably get excited at the first sign of leaves changing, signaling the fall—and more importantly Halloween—is right around the corner. I generally wait until the end of September to start putting up my Halloween décor, but if y…

If you’re like me, you probably get excited at the first sign of leaves changing, signaling the fall—and more importantly Halloween—is right around the corner. I generally wait until the end of September to start putting up my Halloween décor, but if you want to get a jump on the holiday, who am I to judge?

As you stock up on pumpkins and other Halloween décor essentials, you may want to incorporate a few trendy pieces into your display, too, and there’s no shortage of cute, creepy and downright scary options to choose from this year. From Hocus Pocus-themed displays to terrifying tableware, the following are going to be some of the biggest Halloween décor trends for 2022.

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How to Keep Your Cats Off the Kitchen Counter, Once & For All

After several years of model behavior, one of my cats recently discovered that very tasty food like shredded chicken is often left on the kitchen counter at dinnertime. Now, it seems like I can’t turn my back without Henry sneakily jumping on the count…

After several years of model behavior, one of my cats recently discovered that very tasty food like shredded chicken is often left on the kitchen counter at dinnertime. Now, it seems like I can’t turn my back without Henry sneakily jumping on the counter to grab a bite. 

Henry isn’t the first feline who prefers the kitchen counter over the best cat trees. Over time, I’ve found several tactics to keep my kitties with four paws on the floor. If you’re looking for ways to keep cats off the counter, here are the strategies that have worked for me (and thus, my dearest Henry).

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5 Laundry Mistakes You Didn’t Realize You Were Making

I don’t claim to be a laundry expert, but I think at this point in my life I mostly have the chore figured out… right? Maybe not. The other day I was lamenting that one of my shirts came out of the washing machine with a snag in it, and my mom asked if…

I don’t claim to be a laundry expert, but I think at this point in my life I mostly have the chore figured out… right? Maybe not. The other day I was lamenting that one of my shirts came out of the washing machine with a snag in it, and my mom asked if I left any zippers undone. It turns out you’re supposed to close any zippers before putting clothing in the wash—otherwise, the metal teeth can grab onto other fabrics. Maybe it’s just a common sense thing, but I truly never thought of it.

The whole situation got me thinking: What other laundry mistakes am I making? I reached out to a few experts to ask what laundry mistakes they often see most often, and it turns out there are quite a few things that I didn’t know about.

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Don’t Forget to Sterilize Your Canning Jars—Here’s How

We’ve officially reached the point in summer when my garden is producing way more vegetables than we could possibly eat. I’m talking 3 or 4 pounds of cucumbers per day! Because I hate to see anything go to waste, I started learning how to preserve prod…

We’ve officially reached the point in summer when my garden is producing way more vegetables than we could possibly eat. I’m talking 3 or 4 pounds of cucumbers per day! Because I hate to see anything go to waste, I started learning how to preserve produce a few years ago, and now, canning is one of my favorite summertime activities. On any given weekend, you can find me pickling cucumbers, zucchini, and beets or making jam from homegrown rhubarb and peaches.

I’ll be the first to admit that canning can be a bit intimidating, as you have to follow recipes precisely and properly sterilize your equipment to ensure the food is safe to eat down the road. There’s a lot of different information online about how to sterilize canning jars, so we turned to the experts at Ball for definitive answers on how it should be done and when it’s necessary. Here’s what they told us.

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12 Ways to Organize Your Linen Closet Like a Pro

This article was updated in August 2023 to include more of our favorite Shop products.

I’ve always struggled to keep my linen closet organized. It always starts out with neat stacks of sheets and towels, but then I’ll pull my favorite pieces from th…

This article was updated in August 2023 to include more of our favorite Shop products.


I’ve always struggled to keep my linen closet organized. It always starts out with neat stacks of sheets and towels, but then I’ll pull my favorite pieces from the bottom of a pile or knock over the neatly folded linens. Within a week or two, all semblance of organization has gone out the window, and it will usually stay messy (and frustrating) for a few months until I pull everything out and start all over again.

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The Best Way to Unclog Every Drain in Your Home

There comes a time in everyone’s life when we’re forced to deal with a dreaded drain clog. It could be caused by flushing too much toilet paper, letting hair go down the shower drain or putting grease into your garbage disposal, but regardless of the c…

There comes a time in everyone’s life when we’re forced to deal with a dreaded drain clog. It could be caused by flushing too much toilet paper, letting hair go down the shower drain or putting grease into your garbage disposal, but regardless of the culprit, it’s important to know the best ways to unclog a drain so you can get your plumbing back in working order.

To find the best methods for unclogging different drains—including toilets, sinks and showers—we chatted with a plumbing expert, who shared his do’s and don’ts when it comes to clogs. Here’s what he recommends.

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How to Clean All of Your Most-Used Summer Gear

Summer is prime time for outdoor activities, and if you’re anything like me, chances are you spend every possible weekend hanging by the pool, lounging on the beach, or riding down the bike path with friends and family—after all, New England summers ar…

Summer is prime time for outdoor activities, and if you’re anything like me, chances are you spend every possible weekend hanging by the pool, lounging on the beach, or riding down the bike path with friends and family—after all, New England summers are fleeting, so I have to make the most of the nice weather! There’s no shortage of fun things to do in the summer, but a lot of these seasonal activities require special gear and, in turn, special gear requires special cleaning.

After a long day of fun in the sun, you probably don’t want to think about cleaning. (Personally, it’s never one of my favorite topics to dwell on.) However, it’s important to wash your gear properly if you want it to be in top shape for summers to come. After, lawn chairs, pool toys, coolers and more are all prone to mold, mildew, unsavory odors and deterioration if they’re left dirty. The good news? Most of these items are truly easy to clean—here’s what you’ll want to do to get them looking like new.

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Do You *Really* Need to Sort Your Laundry?

My mother taught me to do laundry when I was an early teenager, and a big part of her lesson was how to sort clothing. To this day, she has a thorough sorting routine—she separates her loads of laundry into whites, colors, underwear, jeans, even my dad…

My mother taught me to do laundry when I was an early teenager, and a big part of her lesson was how to sort clothing. To this day, she has a thorough sorting routine—she separates her loads of laundry into whites, colors, underwear, jeans, even my dad’s work clothing, which tends to get really dirty and merits its own cycle. Towels also get their own load, as do sheets and other bedding.

That was how I was taught to do laundry, and for the past 20 years, that was exactly how I did it every two weeks—or however long it took for me to run out of socks. However, this is the part where I tell you that I really don’t like doing laundry, in large part due to the aforementioned sorting. So when my partner and I moved into our house together and started sharing a laundry basket, he took over the chore, and I happily let him.

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What to Do With That Empty Space Above Your Kitchen Cabinets

I did a lot of apartment hopping in my 20s, and while my temporary homes often varied significantly in terms of location and style, most had a few things in common: tiny bathrooms, limited storage space, and a big ol’ gap over the kitchen cabinets. I u…

I did a lot of apartment hopping in my 20s, and while my temporary homes often varied significantly in terms of location and style, most had a few things in common: tiny bathrooms, limited storage space, and a big ol’ gap over the kitchen cabinets. I understand why the latter is often necessary, especially in apartments—if you installed standard-size cabinets flush with the ceiling, there’s no way you’d ever be able to reach inside them—but that didn’t make the gaping space any less awkward.

Most of the time, I just let the space above my cabinets go to waste, but there are ways you can make better use of it—as a display for decorations, extra storage space, or a combination of both. The internet has plenty of ideas for decorating above kitchen cabinets, and these are a few of my favorites.

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