Washing Your Delicates
Read Your Labels Carefully
You’ll notice that some delicate fabrics like fine knits have tags that say “hand wash” or “dry clean.” This wording does not mean you can’t wash them yourself. What it means is you have to take extra care when machine washing your delicate clothing. If your tag says, dry clean only – listen to the label!
Sort delicates by type
Delicates tend to snag and lose shape when washed with unlike fabrics easily. Most people put all of their delicates into a single wash and end up with unfavorable results. If you don’t have a large enough size of each fabric, try using a mesh washing bag to separate items of the same color and prevent mismatched fabrics from tangling.
Handwashing Delicate Clothing
Before you begin handwashing your delicates, make sure to pretreat stains. Dab your favorite stain remover on stained areas and massage it gently into the clothing with your finger. Pay special attention to cuffs, collars, and other areas that tend to get stained or discolored easily. When handwashing delicates only wash one item at a time. After pretreating your delicates, soak them for up to 30 minutes. Rinse it thoroughly with cold water. Never twist or wring your delicates in an attempt to remove water! Try pressing down on the fabric to get the water to come out of the clothing. If pressing down on the garment does not remove the water, lay your delicate clothes on a towel and roll it up to help absorb the moisture faster. Never put delicates in the dryer! Instead of the dryer, hang dry all delicates.
Machine Washing Delicates
If you don’t want to hand wash your delicates, then machine washing might be the right solution for you. Just like with handwashing, make sure to pretreat your delicate clothing before washing. To start, turn each of your delicates inside out and make sure all openings are zipped or buttoned. Put your delicates into a mesh washing bag. Select your machine’s gentle or delicate cycle and place the prepped mesh bags into the washer. Make sure your washer is set to the lowest spin cycle, and you have it set to cold water. Hang dry all of your delicates never dry them!
