Hand-washing clothes with care extends the life of your pieces, especially delicate materials like silk or embellished fabrics.
It only takes one of these damaged garments to lock in the lesson.
You should also diligently follow instructions for clothing labeled dry-clean only.
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Listen to your tags!
Always hand-wash delicate materials and follow tag instructions.
This will help avoid shrinking, snagging, and textural alteration.
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Typically, fabrics like leather, velvet, lace, and suede need to be dry-cleaned rather than hand-washed.
Consider Your Detergent
Most laundry detergents are safe for hand-washing clothes.
Before you handle your laundry, scrub down your basin and rinse away all residue and cleaning products.
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This will prevent muddying the pieces if any color bleeding occurs while washing.
Use about a teaspoon of laundry detergent and mix it into the water with your hand.
Remember: Suds arent required here.Too much detergentwill make your delicate items filmy and necessitate an additional rinse.
Ideally, you should handle the items as little as possible.
If needed, allow your garments to soak between 10 and 30 minutes prior to beginning the swishing process.
It shouldnt feel like a washer cycle.
The detergent and the water are doing what theyre meant to do.
You’ll want to wash very dirty garments by themselves as well.
Drain your original water, then refill the basin with clean (still cold or tepid) water.
Drain and refill your basin as many times as is necessary to clean the item of any residual detergent.
Step 6: Towel Or Hang Dry
The weight of your garments will determinehow to dryeach piece.
These heavier pieces should be laid flat to dry or draped carefully over the rungs of a drying rack.
Avoid using wire hangers to hang dry clothes.
Wire hangers mixed with water can give your clothing nasty rust stains that are difficult to remove.
Knits always need to be laid flat.
If you hang them on a hanger, the shoulders will become stretched.
How To Tackle Stains
To remove stains from more delicate clothing, avoid scrubbing.
