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How many mistakes are you making?
How long can you say you’ve been doing laundry? Like forever?!
How many times do you think you’ve changed the laundry routine or done something different? Probably never either.
We’re going to show you how to up your laundry game with solutions to common laundry mistakes you probably didn’t know you were making.
Separation
You may already be separating your clothes by lights and darks (and if you don’t, you now know the reason why your white shirts keep turning grey) but that’s not all the separation you should be considering.
The best way to separate clothes is to separate lights and darks, and then separate again further by type and soils. Heavy soiled clothes may be washed together on a more effective cycle than slightly soiled clothes. You may also want to further separate by heavy and light clothes or type of fabric.
We would not recommend putting a woolly or fluffy jumper in the wash with a shirt as the fluff will separate taking more time and effort to remove fluff from shirts after the wash has ended.
Don’t use too much detergent or fabric conditioner
Using too much soap does not make clothes cleaner. And using too much fabric conditioner does not make clothes softer.
Too much soap actually can cause itching and irritation as the soap is left on the clothes, while too much fabric softer can leave a coated layer on the clothes that over time will cause the water in the fabric to not dry properly, and can deteriorate and make clothes smell foul.
Not everything needs to go in the dryer
When there’s sunshine outside use the sun and not the dryer. It will save you lots of money and is better for the environment. Plus, using a dryer can wear out fabrics more quickly.
Zips and hooks
Zips and hooks like those found on bras will snag delicate materials. Try to zip up all zips before loading the machine. Bras can be put in a net bag to avoid snagging too.
If you don’t have a net bag, an easy alternative is to wrap the hooks with tin foil or a piece of cloth to prevent the snagging.
Buttons too
Just like the hooks and zips, keep buttons buttoned up. When the load goes through a rigorous spin buttons may get caught on something and can snap in half or the thread may break off.
To avoid losing buttons you should do up all buttons on shirts.
Clean the lint
If you didn’t know that not cleaning lint from the buildup deposit is the main cause of fires in laundry then now you know.
Lint is the fluff that get’s trapped in the vent of the drying machine.
Lint gets hot, and keeping it in a hot machine susceptible to fires is dangerous.
Don’t ignore the dry clean only label
If you want to risk cleaning your delicates and expensive items at home then we can’t stop you.
Leather, suede, silk and anything with beads or rhinestone sequins can all be washed at home - but we can’t promise that there won’t be any damage when your laundry cycle ends.
Don’t lose your socks; put them in a net bag
Avoid sock orphans by putting all socks in a net bag on your next wash. Don’t have a net bag? You can use a pillow case or similar.
Clean your washing machine
Over time washing machines can get pretty dirty. Do you really need to clean it? Yes you do!
Mould and limescale can build up inside so it’s important to clean at least once every three months. If your machine has a deep cleaning cycle we recommend putting a bit of fairy inside the drum and letting it do its work.
If you want to do a full clean we also recommend adding bleach to the machine. You can also do this on a regular wash mode if your machine doesn’t have a drum cleaning setting.
Make sure if you use bleach to repeat the cycle again but with no detergent to make sure all bleach has been removed. Then wait 24 hours before doing a cycle.
And that’s all our tips for better laundry at home. Let us know which tip you loved the most, and which one you’ll be doing on your next laundry load.
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