but…but hand washing is easy? and free? unlike dry cleaning!
._. I…never really learned how to hand-wash things. So I guess I feel really intimidated by it? Do you have any advice??? That would be so welcome!
In summer I do a handwash about once a month. I also handwash cashmere and some specialty fabric items when they need it, and silk items every other time, alternating with dry cleaning.
A lot of silk winds up in thrift stores because people don’t know how to wash it, or assume it always has to be dry cleaned. Learn how to handwash and clean up on silk!
WHY handwash?
Fabric is delicate – printed, beaded, embroidered, textured, structured, vintage or antique.
Fabric requires extra care or gentle handling – cashmere, silk, textured/pleated polyesters, printed patterns, your favorite Japanese denim.
Handwashing saves money compared to dry cleaning.
Handwashing is not so great for: suit jackets, heavily lined garments, cotton knits, rayon crepe.
You will need:
- A sink (tops/lingerie/dress shirts) or a bathtub (a dress, lots of garments to do)
- Delicate or handwash detergent
- Two or three terrycloth bath towels that aren’t very special to you
- Hangers and space for clothes drying
- Rubber gloves to wear if you don’t want to get your hands wet.
How to handwash:
Fill your sink ½ with cold water and a recommended amount of your detergent. For a bathtub, I fill it about 2 – 3 inches. This setup is good for 3 – 4 garments.
Start with your lightest-colored garment first. Dip this into the water: press out the air bubbles. Get it good and soaked in there.
Wash the garment. Swoosh it in the water; scrunch it up a little; lift it up, let the water drip out: dunk it in the water again. The point is to create gentle movement that will loosen any dirt or substances. If the garment was a little whiffy, let it soak in the detergent 5 minutes.
Lift the garment out of the water and wring it out gently. Put it to one side.
Wash your next garment, repeating the process. Is there a little dye release? Don’t panic. This happens in a washing machine, you just don’t see it.
When you’ve washed everything, empty your sink/tub. Rinse each garment in clear cold water, wringing it out.
Hey, your garments are still pretty wet! This is where the towels come in. Shake your garment out flat and lay it on a towel. Roll up the towel, squeezing gently. Unroll it. Your garment is now 50% more dry.
Hang your garment on a coat hanger. If it’s a firm cotton, maybe give it a shake and then hang it. You can also lay garments flat on a towel to dry. Personally, I never have room for this.
Some notes:
I only handwash knitted wool, not woven wool. Knitted wool and cashmere are basically forms of hair. They squeeze out well and dry suprisingly quickly.
Woven cotton, silk, polyester crepe and linen handwash like a dream, as do small pieces of underwear and stockings.
Cotton and rayon knit fabrics soak up tons of water and take a while to dry.
Rayon crepe is strange and irregular stuff. It may shrink dramatically or develop a dry, pebbly texture after handwashing. I don’t handwash rayon crepe anymore. I love how it feels but I’m very picky about including it in my wardrobe.
You can also be super half-assed about this process if you have mostly-same-colored things and some plastic tubs. I leave stuff soaking for days, because sometimes I have enough umph to get it started but not enough umph to wring out a bunch of wet stuff. Some more notes:
- Don’t actually wring (like twist up) knits or delicate fabrics. Just squeeze the water out from one end to the other. I usually walk my fists down the fabric, keeping my grip tight on the last spot until I’ve squeezed water out of the next spot, to keep it from squeezing back up to what I just dried. On a wool knit, I do this 2-3 times because wool holds a ridiculous amount of water.
- Make a big towel+wet stuff rollup, using as many towels as you want. Take your shoes off and stand on it. Walk back and forth. Jump up and down. Now it is even more dry than just rolling it up and squeezing!
- Don’t hang knits to dry, they will stretch. Lay them flat on a towel, spare bed, or carpet. Knit lace, if you have any, should be tugged out to open the lace up.
- There are several no-rinse soaps for wool handwashing, but you can use them on non-wool stuff too: Eucalan is the one I use, your local yarn store is likely to have at least one option. The nice thing is, you really don’t have to rinse them out, so it saves a bunch of getting-water-all-over-your-bathroom/kitchen between the soap and rinse rounds (or maybe that’s just me).
Great additions! It’s true, I say “wring.” But I have tiny marmoset hands – my hands are so small, I should be the next President of the United States – so when I wring something it’s pretty gentle.
If you’re in the US there is a lot of debate about the delicate/wool detergent Woolite, to the point that I’m not confident recommending it. Lots of unmixed recs for Eucalan though. And for a real bargain…use a little bit of baby shampoo, especially for cashmere.
I live Down Under, and I use EcoStore Wool and Delicates.
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