Look your best

Poor cleaning of garments after laundering can result from several factors. Failing to sort loads properly, overloading the washer, not pre-treating stains and soils, or not using enough detergent can all result in poor cleaning.

You can also improve cleaning performance by following these tips:

• Soak soiled and stained items in cold water prior to the wash cycle to improve cleaning results.
• Use the double wash feature (if available) to clean heavily soiled items without having to pre-treat stained areas.
• Choose the correct detergent. Granular detergents are best for hard water conditions, while liquid detergents dissolve better in cold water conditions.
• Use extra detergent. For heavily soiled clothes, extra large loads, or hard water, use more than the recommended amount of detergent. Remember to use caution when laundering dark loads.
• If the care label does not contain special instructions regarding water temperature, use hot water whenever possible. Hot water is best for most white fabrics and heavily soiled, colored fabrics. Warm water works well for cleaning most other clothes, while cold water is recommended only for very lightly soiled or brightly colored garments.
• If using bleach, such as chlorine bleach or “all fabric” bleach, remember to test the fabric for colorfastness. Simply place some bleach on a cotton swab and hold it on an innocuous area of the garment, such as an inner seam, for a few minutes to see if any color comes out on the swab.

 

 

A customer asked, "The care label on a sweater indicates it is hand washable. Can I wash it in a machine on a delicate cycle?"

There is some risk involved in using any care process not recommended by the manufacturer. Hand washing involves manual removal of soils with water, detergent, and a gentle squeezing action. A care label that calls for machine washing, in a delicate or gentle cycle, indicates the garment can be removed with water, detergent or soap, slow agitation, and reduced time in a washing machine.

Hand washing is a restrictive care process that minimizes the amount of abrasion a garment receives in cleaning. If handwashable garments are machine washed in a gentle cycle, agitation may be further minimized by putting the item in a net bag.

Even this procedure is in violation of the care label instruction, however, and places responsibility for damages on the launderer rather than the manufacturer.