Do you like to do your laundry? Or do you know how to wash your clothes?
If not, well, we are the same. We hate doing it and don’t know how to do it properly. Also, it’s so tiring that we spend much more of our time and money on our laundry than on ourselves. Still, regardless of how much we hate it, we have to do it because it won’t happen by itself, and we have the perfect step-by-step guide for all your worries regarding how to do laundry.
You’ll need a few tools to have your laundry appropriately done while you’re getting ready to wash it. Having the appropriate supplies and following these easy steps is the best way to do laundry. You’ll need the following items before you begin your laundry process :
- Detergent for laundry
- Vinegar or a pre-treater
- Bleach
- Softener for fabrics
- Baskets
- Hanger
- Iron
- Board for ironing
Please follow the below steps:
1. Read fabric labels
First and foremost, check the fibre labels, usually found on the side seams, back neck, or back waist of clothing. These tiny labels give us all we need to know about our clothing, including the fibres it’s made of and the best ways to wash and dry it. Instructions are usually written explicitly, although labels can sometimes merely be a list of laundry symbols. Here are some tips on how we can take care of our clothing by following these simple tips to wash our clothes according to their fabric.
- Cotton should be washed in hot, warm, or cold water and dried at a high, normal, or low temperature.
- Tumble dry low or air dry linen in cold or warm water.
- Nylon should be washed in cold or warm water and dried at a medium or low temperature.
- Polyester should be washed in cold or warm water and dried at a medium or low temperature.
- Rayon should be hand washed in cold water and tumble dried low or line dry.
- Silk should be hand washed in cold or warm water, air, line, or dried flat.
- Spandex should be washed in cold water and hung to dry.
- Wool should be hand washed in cold or warm water and tumble dried low or flat.
2. Sorting out your laundry
To begin, sort the laundry by colour:
- Whites, pastels, light greys, and white background prints will all be grouped together in one pile.
- Deep-colored clothing—black, red, navy, brown, and dark gray—is sorted into a separate pile.
- Heavy soiling should be washed separately.
Sort each pile once more by fabric type. Separate towels and sheets from clothing in the whites pile, for example. Separate t-shirts and jeans from lighter weight items like blouses and dress shirts in dark colours.
When you wash by fabric type, you can use different water temperatures and keep drying cycles simple. Never wash lint-producing and lint-attracting fabrics together to reduce lint!
If there aren’t enough items of each type of fabric for a full washer load and you’re in a hurry, you can wash all items of each colour together. Just make sure to select the washer cycle that is appropriate for the load’s most delicate garments.
3. Choosing the right detergent
Choose a multi-purpose laundry detergent. Read the instructions to determine how much to use based on the load size.
If your clothes have stains, pre-treat them before washing to prevent them from setting in. Simply use a stain remover or a small amount of laundry detergent to remove the stain.
Before loading the washer, add the detergent to the drum or dispenser. This will keep residue off your clothes.
4. Water temperature and cycle
Unless your clothes are caked in dirt and heavily stained, washing in cold water will suffice and prevent the majority of laundry disasters.
Cotton underwear and bedsheets, on the other hand, require hot water to remove body oil. To sanitise bed linens and towels, they should be washed at the highest recommended temperature at least every other wash.
Always rinse in cold water, regardless of the temperature.
You should also select the best washer cycle for the fabrics in the load. For most loads, the “normal” cycle will suffice, but for certain fabrics, you may need to use “permanent press” or “delicate.” “Heavy-duty” is ideal for items such as jean.
5. Final check
Take some time to double-check everything before loading the washer. This will prevent you from making any last-minute mistakes.
Look for and pre-treat any stains. Some stains require special techniques to remove, while others can be handled with a spot treatment. There’s also a method for dealing with mystery stains when you’re not sure what caused them.
Check that all pockets are empty—no tissues or paper—to avoid disasters. Remove all accessories, including belts and jewellery. To avoid catching the fabrics, close all zippers, VELCRO, and buttons.
6. Load the washer
Load the washer one item at a time, making sure they are not in a wad. Do not overfill the washer. The clothes require space in the water to move around.
Turn knitted items, corduroy, textured fabric, and dark colours inside out to protect fabric finishes and reduce the “washed out” look.
7. Unload the washer
Promptly remove wet laundry from the washer to lessen wrinkles and prevent mildew. Hang items to air dry, lay flat to dry, or place them in the dryer.
8. Load the dryer
If you didn’t separate your loads by fabric type when washing, do so now before putting them in the dryer. It is critical to dry all lightweight items together and all heavy fabric items together, using the appropriate dryer cycle for each. This will help to keep your clothes from shrinking and will protect them.
There are numerous reasons why you should line dry your laundry. Among these are energy (and money) savings and less damage to your clothes. However, due to space and weather constraints, not everyone is able to do so.
9. Hang or fold the clothes!
You’ll want to take care of your clothes as soon as they’re dry. To avoid wrinkling, hang or fold each piece as soon as it comes out of the dryer. And, of course, iron if necessary. Return clothes and linens to their proper closets or drawers as
While some of us know how to fold the clothes, many of us find it hard to hence there are some folding tricks that we can follow:
- Roll the matching socks together.
- Fold/Hang the dress and shirts on the hanger.
- Jeans should be folded in thirds.
- Tuck in the sleeves when folding the shirt in thirds.
- Before tucking sleeves and folding into thirds, button and straighten collars of collared shirts.
- Make a square of clothes by folding them in half, then half again.
Laundry management tips
We can do various things to make laundry day go more smoothly. Instead of putting all dirty clothes in one basket, we can have numerous baskets ready for different sorts of clothing. This can save us our time sorting. While other laundry tricks are as follows:
- Don’t pre-treat with a stain remover if there are no stains.
- Do your laundry every day to avoid it from overwhelming.
- Remove the clothes that need ironing from the dryer to save time.
- Instead of adding another chemical, you can use a detergent containing bleach.
Now that we know how to do laundry, we may not ruin our clothes or the fabric, but the leftover detergent, fabric softener, or dirt can get lodged in our washing machine, which can cause mould to grow and a musty odour to emerge. This can be prevented by ensuring that there’s no dirt or detergent left in the machine after each wash so that it does not redeposit on future loads.