A part of everyone’s adulting journey consists of doing their own laundry. While some of us were properly guided into it, others consisted of numerous solo trips to the laundry room, shirts that do not survive the wash and shrunken sweaters. If you find yourself in the same situation, do not worry! These quick tips will consist of the essential tips you need for your laundry days.
1. Categorising Your Laundry
Have you ever come across all-colour laundry detergents? It will work sometimes, but not in all cases. That is where the big problem arises - your white shirt turning blue, discolouration of clothing pieces. Instead of trusting the product, start to sort and categorise your laundry.
Firstly, look at the care labels tagged to your clothes and remove pieces that are for hand wash, dry clean or to not tumble dry. These labels will let you know if there are any special instructions for your pieces. Next, sort the remaining laundry by colour. Split them by colours - dark vs light, and by the type of fabric.
2. Prevent Shrink Or Stretch
Nothing hurts more than your favourite dress or sweater shrinking or stretching out. To prevent that, remember to follow care labels closely and try to use a gentle laundry cycle. With the delicate cycle, there will be less agitation and stress caused on your clothes. Furthermore, as much as the dryer always sounds tempting, try to air dry your clothes as the heat from the dryer will easily cause shrinking.
3. Mesh Laundry Bags
Easily found in department stores, these bags are inexpensive and a helpful laundry tool. Laundry bags are primarily used to protect delicates in the cycle - these prevent stretched straps and having hooks damage other pieces in a mixed laundry load. You can also use it to store small items from getting misplaced, such as socks, baby clothes or sports equipment.
4. Using A Drying Rack
With the rainy season in town, it will be harder to air dry your clothes outdoors without worrying about the weather. A way to dry clothes on your dryer with limited space is to not overlap your pieces and leave spaces between them so it will dry faster.
In addition, instead of hanging sweaters as it is, try folding it into half to prevent killing its shape. You can also lay out knits or heavy items flat rather than hanging them out to dry.
5. Items That Do NOT Belong In A Washing Machine
Right off our minds, there are some things that should never belong in the washing machine but somehow ended up there ... such as our cellphones, earpiece or transport cards. That said, we should always flip through our pockets to ensure these items do not end up in the laundry.
Here are more things that simply do not fit in.
- Suits: For the high price that you have paid, bring them to the dry cleaner to avoid stretch or tears.
- Swimwear: Putting this high elasticity piece will make them lose elasticity faster in the washing machine - hand wash them instead.
- Baby socks: There is a high chance that small items will get lost in a washing machine.
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