In the average family, there is hardly a day when the washing machine is not turned on. As much as it does all the work independently, there are specific laundry rules you should know and apply to maintain your clothes properly.
How not to ruin delicate pieces of silk and wool? How to remove stains and preserve colors? Do you know and follow the symbols on the wardrobe labels? What is washed by hand, when, and what absolutely needs dry cleaning? Find out the answers to these questions and a few more timeless laundry maintenance tips and tricks on clothes care without mistakes!
Disclosure: Sponsored post.
Is Hand-Washing Really Necessary?
Of course, washing clothes by hand is more laborious and time consuming than machine washing. Therefore, we often regret that we bought the cashmere sweater or silk blouse, when it requires cleaning.
Although it is sometimes tiring, this process allows for a longer lifetime and better appearance of your garment. Washing clothes by hand is demanding, but there are a couple of tricks that can make this task easier for you, and certainly help to ensure that washing clothes is well-spent.
Can You Skip Hand-Washing?
First of all, read the labels. Depending on the material blend, some manufacturers label pieces “hand wash only,” even when one could machine-wash it. The reason is that they want to protect themselves in advance from potential damage claims. This means when you machine-wash the item, it’s at your own risk.
Read the manual of your washer. They often have specific, “delicate” washing programs for wool, silk, and cashmere. These programs wash at the right temperature, without spinning and with controlled revolutions to not damage your clothes.
However, if a garment has sewn-on parts (such as tassels or threads), or is of a very delicate, easy to damage structure, you will have to hand-wash it.
When Is It Time for Dry Cleaning?
Even when you don’t often take your clothes to the dry cleaners, there are stains that need professional help to remove. Also, quality and more expensive pieces such as coats, jackets, suits, or evening dresses are maintained exclusively by dry cleaning. Here are some timeless tips for laundry maintenance by dry cleaning:
- Always empty your pockets before bringing your clothes to the dry cleaner.
- Never try to clean a garment tagged “dry cleaning only” in any other way. Have your garments cleaned as needed, but keep in mind that the clothes still wear out this way. Generally, coats need to be cleaned once a year, regularly worn jackets and trousers more often.
- Removing greasy stains from wax, various paints, and colors is difficult, and uncertain despite of great stain removers and great home remedies. Therefore, it’s best to leave stained, sensitive fabrics and expensive materials to the professionals.
- Never try to remove the stains yourself, you will make the problem even worse. Instead, bring soiled clothing to cleaning asap.
- Always choose verified, high-quality cleaners with the possibility of complaints, such as this company for dry cleaning in NJ
- Always clearly explain to the dry cleaners, how your attire got stained and with which material. This knowledge helps them to remove the stain with adequate means.
- Take the nylon wrap off before you store your freshly cleaned clothes in your closet. The wrap namely is only meant for easy, safe transport on your way home. Leaving the wrap on might cause buildup of moisture under the foliage which may cause mold and spoiling. Furthermore, put your garment on an appropriate hanger. The wire clothespins are for single use only, not for permanent use in your closet.
When to Use Your Washing Machine?
Certain clothing must be washed at high temperatures for disinfection because they get dirtier, come into contact with the face or private parts, and must be impeccably clean. Pieces to machine-wash include bed linen, towels, underwear – what is usually called “white laundry”. For all the other colorful, thin laundry, children’s wardrobes, or sportswear, pay attention to use the respective washing programs and temperature settings.
Tip: Arrange your laundry room to sort your clothes in baskets according to their care requirements.
Use the Right Amount of Detergent, Load, and Temperature
Wash your clothes only with the correct amount of detergent indicated on the packaging. The excess wouldn’t clean the laundry any better than the right amount. Instead, undissolved detergent just clogs the pipes, and creates excess foam in the drum. This foam lifts dirt to the top, but fails to remove it. Furthermore, too much detergent can cause skin irritations and allergies.
Never overload the machine, or force a too large amount of laundry into it. A too full machine fails to wash well because some of the items may neither absorb soapy water, nor get rinsed thoroughly. Overloading also bears a risk to break the equipment, and ruin the laundry!
Low washing temperatures or washing in cold water are best for lightly soiled laundry, newly purchased pieces, special and sensitive fabrics. Disinfection of heavily soiled laundry at low temperatures will not be satisfactory, and most detergents do not even dissolve at temperatures below 40 degrees.
How to Best Handle Fabric Softener
Do not overdo it with fabric softener, no matter how much you love the fragrance! Recall softener is not washed out in the last rinse. Furthermore, too much fabric softener also leaves traces on the garments.
Expert tip: New towels will stop shedding if you wash them the first few times without adding fabric softener.
If you wash pieces for sensitive people or small children, it is okay to skip fabric softener.
Drying and Combo Washer-Dryer Tips
A combo washer dryer (aka washer-dryer) is another ace up the sleeve of a modernly equipped home. But even here, we must be careful when choosing the program. First of all, separate the laundry according to color, and type of material, just like for a standard washer. Moreover, when you dry the laundry in the washer-dryer, ensure that all the pieces are of the same thickness and material so that they dry evenly.
Follow the recommended laundry weight for drying, because your laundry will dry only completely if there is enough space in the drum for easy flow of the hot/warm air.
Delayed Start Option
If you use the delayed start option, you leave the washer-dryer to wash or dry by itself. Therefore, you must put only as much laundry in the machine as it can dry. This means, you cannot put in the maximum amount that a drum can wash. These combined washer-dryers usually dry half the capacity of what they can wash, i.e., half of the drum.
Timeless Laundry Maintenance Tips in a Nutshell
So when you love your clothes follow the care instructions on the clothing tags and those of your laundry equipment. When in doubt, a professional dry cleaner is your best option.
Featured photo: Pixel.
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Thanks for the guidance!