Learning how to hand wash clothes is an important, if somewhat unexpected, part of modern life. Many renters don’t have access to an in-unit washing machine, and even those who do will want to avoid exposing their most delicate (and expensive!) lingerie , swimwear, and sweaters to the washing machine’s spin cycle. Knowing how to hand wash clothes isn’t exactly intuitive.
As anyone who has entertained the notion can attest, there are a surprising number of questions to consider. Like, what is the ideal water temperature to use when hand washing? Should darks and lights be separated? And, how am I supposed to dry all this stuff when I’m done? For answers to all of these questions, we called upon The Laundress ’ Gwen Whiting and Lindsey Boyd . As co-founders of a brand dedicated to all things laundry, the two are experts at hand washing.
Below, they share their best practices for hand-washing launderable fabrics and garments and also address the age-old conundrum of whether hand washing or dry cleaning is best. Read on for all the easy, actionable steps. To dry clean or hand wash? While we always try to avoid dry cleaning, there are some dry-clean only items that we don’t recommend washing.
Fur with skin cannot be washed as the skin can shrink or dry out with wet washing. Another tricky fabric is Viscose. Viscose is a type of rayon, and although many rayons can be washed, viscose has been known to shrink to extreme proportions.
We also find that rayon and viscose are.