Washing Clothes - Page 2

I use the tide cold water it is great for my wrinkle free clothing.

Soap nuts are a nice alternative to chemical based laundry detergents.

To prevent colors from fading, try to turn clothes inside out while washing or add a cup of vinegar to your washing machine.

 

Good luck.

What is the point of using cold water over warm water? Is there really a difference?

Read my earlier post on color fastness. Better yet, try it for yourself and get back to us.

So, cold water is actually cold water? Do you use special detergents then? Normal detergents don't work with cold water, do they?

I machine wash my shirts at 30°C with a mild detergent and spin-dry at 800 rpm. Then I hang them to dry and iron them. Works for me.

Depends on what you mean by normal. In the EU the machines are moving to 15C for normal cold washes. The detergent companies know this

If the clothes aren't mud caked you don't need anything special. People washed clothes with cold water long before hotwater heaters became common.

Of course around here during the summer cold tap water isn't much colder then 30C.

That makes sense. The consumer's tests I've read about the new low temperature detergents (15C) weren't very positive though, ie the washing results were rather poor. But you're right: if the shirts aren't very dirty to begin with, there's not much needed to get them clean.

arm & hammer + oxi clean for whites and lights

woolite for darks

You can use warm water quite safely - if there no care label in each to guide you?

This is a pet peeve of mine. In fact with the advent of all this environmental nonsense getting clothes clean is really difficult. You may have noticed that whites aren't as white anymore no matter what you do . The reason for this is that detergents no longer contain Sodium Tripolyphosphate. STPP was the only real ingredient getting clothes clean. Now detergents use stuff like surfactents and washing soda-a real joke as cleaning agents go and more prone to cause fading becasue they work more in a mechanical fashion.

The worst to clean is the white french cuffs on my shirts. There is always a faint ring around them no matter what I use. A few years ago I did purchase 100 kilos of STPP and that was totally effective. My whites and especially cuffs came out looking brand new. Unfortuneately I ran out of STPP several months ago only to find the local chemical supply company that had it closed shop.

A few tips- 1)never use vinager because it stincks ( it really does) and is not all that effective. If you feel the need to use an acid, then use citric acid same effect but in contrast it smell nice just like lemons.
2) You can use TSP (tri sodium phosphate) which is easy to use but this can lead to drain deposits and clogging of machines if you have hard water. TSP is less effective than STPP.
3) use STPP if you can find it. Once you do you will never go back to anything else.

I have always been under the impression that warm water caused clothes to shrink.


The main reason I resurrected this was to discuss fabric softener. Does liquid softener work on clothes that are hung dry? Does it damage clothes in any way?

Tide does the job and take it easy with fabric conditioners or bleach on your dress shirts. Repeated exposure to certain chemicals can reduce the durability of your dress shirts and can even cause an unpleasant yellow stain on the fabric and instead ironing the suit, use a clothing steamer.