Wash laundry properly now! With these 6 clever tips, you will succeed in washing and discoloration will be a thing of the past. We’ll show you how to best avoid typical mistakes when doing laundry.
Let’s be honest: Which housewife has never had anything go wrong? A lot can go wrong, especially when doing laundry – without the right information, problems are inevitable. We give you the six most common mistakes when doing laundry and how you can avoid them.
1) Disappeared socks
Who doesn’t know this: You put your socks together after washing and – lo and behold – some are missing. This is a mystery to some. Is there a sock dimension into which these disappear? There’s even a lost sock day. In reality, the lonely socks are in the machine. They are pressed against the window of the washing machine during an overloaded wash cycle and then pressed between the slot by the rubber of the washing drum. Then they often end up on the heating element and are often gradually dissolved there.
Since this happens particularly often with an overloaded wash cycle, we advise never filling the washing machine completely and washing small items of clothing such as socks alone in manageable quantities. Another tip: Get special sock clips and clip the socks together. If you don’t have a sock clip, you can also take a hair tie and wrap it around the socks or just tie the socks together. By the way, here you will find a miracle cure for smelly socks and stockings.
2) Laundry is discolored
It is well known that you have to sort by color to avoid discoloration. You wash white laundry separately from multicolored, colored laundry and this separately from single-colored, colored laundry. In addition, black or dark brown laundry should always be washed separately, since the risk of discoloration is very high here. Red laundry used to be known to tend to bleed, but these days you can wash it with other colors as a lot of red laundries doesn’t bleed anymore. You can use this simple trick to test whether the laundry is rubbing off: put red laundry in a bucket of warm water for half an hour. If the water turns reddish, then the clothing will stain. You will also find out how you can get yellowed laundry white again.
- Whites/Lights: Light colors from white to light blue.
- Light colors: pink, orange, yellow
- Dark colors: red, green, blue
- Black wash/dark wash: Black and dark brown
It is also important to sort by materials. Silk fabrics, shirts, or wool sweaters should always be washed extra gently or even by hand. Often it is also on the label if you should wash something by hand and it makes sense to pay attention to this. Jeans should never be washed with wool or sensitive materials, always turned inside out and only washed with other jeans in the same shade of blue and never with fabric softener. Also, follow our overview of fabrics for clothing with properties and care instructions.
3) Non-deflated pockets
The classic is the forgotten handkerchief in the trouser pocket. You know it, especially with children: hair clips, hair ties, or other things are often overlooked in the trouser pocket. These can get wedged in the sieves of the washing drum and cause damage. Pointed objects are particularly dangerous, but handkerchiefs can also ruin the inside of trousers or jacket pockets. Therefore: Turn all pockets inside out beforehand and check carefully whether there is anything hidden somewhere. Don’t forget the inner pockets! Was something damaged? How to sew small holes in t-shirts
4) Damaged clothing
To all women: remember to fasten your bras before putting them in the washing machine. Another tip: Pack your bras in a cloth bag or in a laundry net. This completely eliminates the risk of damaging clothing with fasteners. In addition, button plackets and zips should be closed, as they can also damage other clothing in the form of small holes. Always turn clothing with applications such as rhinestones inside out. This not only protects the decorations on the clothes but also the other clothes in the washing drum. You can find more tips here: Washing and caring for bras and lingerie properly.
5) White spots and fading
Dark and especially black clothing should never be washed with heavy-duty detergent, as heavy-duty detergent bleaches. Furthermore, washing powder often cannot dissolve completely, which is why you should wash dark laundry with liquid detergent. There are special detergents for black laundry, but you don’t necessarily have to use them and a color detergent or a mild detergent is also sufficient. You may be using too much detergent, so the rule of thumb is to only use as much detergent as you need.
A lot doesn’t necessarily help a lot and can also lead to the opposite: Too much foam is formed and the laundry doesn’t get really clean as a result. Furthermore, the washing program should not be too short and you should use enough water. If you then turn dark laundry inside out, there shouldn’t be any more light spots! By the way: the fading of dark laundry is often due to drying in the sun. You should therefore put dark laundry in the dryer or dry it in a shady place. Do you have any further questions about drying? Here you will find tips for drying laundry quickly and correctly.
6) Shrunk laundry
Also a classic: the new pullover has become too small when washed at 50°C. How can this happen? Our tip: Read the information label inside the clothing. There are often indications that laundry should only be washed by hand or at a maximum of 30°C. These tips are ignored by many, although they save some trouble. Here you can find help with the question Do you use a washing machine or hand wash? Heavily soiled clothes need to be washed at higher temperatures than clothes that have been worn for a day and just need to be fresh. Even if you wash dirty clothes with relatively clean clothes, laundry shrinkage can occur. You should therefore not only sort the laundry by color and material, but also by temperature and degree of soiling.
- 90°C: Heavily soiled cotton only
- 60°C: towels, bed linen, pajamas, underwear (made of cotton)
- 40°C: dresses, skirts, T-shirts, shirts
- 30°C: wool sweaters, silk shirts
