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How to Wash Clothes

Washing Clothes

Clean clothes may not be vital to a human beings survival, but they are nice to have. To get clean clothes somebody has to wash them. It is easy to say washing clothes is an easy task when someone else is doing it. When you are doing it yourself, you may find it a bit more complex than pick the clothes up, put them in the washer, add soap, and turn it on.

Different clothing requires different washing methods. Some clothing may require hand washing. Other clothing may require a certain temperature of water or a certain type of soap. The type of water you have in your house will affect how you wash clothes. The type of clothing and color of clothing will affect how you wash clothes. Washing clothes is a simple process with complex preparations. You could simply put your clothing in the washer with whatever soap you have around and turn it on, but you could end up with ruined clothes.

This guide on how to wash clothes will cover all the complex intricacies of washing clothes as well as provide a step by step guide to the process.

The first step in washing clothes is to sort them into loads to be washed.

Separate out clothing into piles as follows:

Clothing that needs to be hand washed or dry cleaned. You can find this information by checking tags. While you may be able to wash clothing that is recommended to be hand washed or dry cleaned, you chance ruining the item by trying.

Clothing that is Delicate. Clothing such as bras, underwear, and other lacey, delicate things should be washed separate on a gentle cycle to prevent damage. This will also eliminate the issue of things like bra clasps catching on other clothing and becoming all wound up.

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Clothing that is white. If you wash white clothing with colored clothing you often end up with whites tinted another color. Blue, from jeans or pink, from red clothing is most common.

Clothing that is light colored. This is done for the same reason as mentioned above in white clothing. Light colors like yellow, tan, and pink for example can be ruined just as easily as white.

Clothing that is dark in color. If you have enough laundry, you can also just sort by color. For example, if you have enough blue jeans to make one load, wash those together. In the case of socks, you may also want put them in a net bag or pillow case. This makes it impossible for you to lose one in the wash. This is particularly helpful for infant or children’s tiny socks.

Next, you can begin washing your piles. Set the items that need to be hand washed aside for later.

The first step in washing clothing in a washing machine is to set the dials. Most washers have three dials.

Load Size:

This setting determines how much water is put into the machine during the wash. For delicates, for example you may not have a full load and can save water by setting your machine to small. If you have a full load and forget to change the setting to large, your clothes will not get clean.

Temperature:

This setting determines the temperature of the water being used to wash your clothing.

*Hot water is good to use to remove stains and kill germs, but it also may fade colored clothing and cause wrinkling.

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*Warm water is best for just standard washing. It removes dirt and gets the clothing clean.

*Cold water is good to use on delicates and will save money on your energy bill. Some clothing requires cold washing to avoid shrinkage. Cold-water washing requires special soap unless you add the detergent or soap to warm water before adding to the washing machine.

Type of Wash

This setting determines the way the clothing is washed. Most machines have four settings, regular, delicate, permanent press, and pre-soak. These settings are used for just what they are called; the delicate setting for example is for delicate clothing.

Now open the washer and insert your desired cleanser. Follow the instructions on this product. Turn the machine on and allow the cleanser to dissolve. Then add your clothing. Do not fill above the pole in the center of the washer or pack clothing. Everything should fit loosely into the washer.

Finally you just wait for the washer to buzz and move on to drying.

While you wait for your machine to finish you can wash your hand wash pile if you wish.

To wash clothing by hand begin by finding a wash space. You can use a sink, tub or even plastic bucket. Fill the bucket with the water temperature instructed on the tag of the clothing. If the clothing doesn’t have a tag or does not state a temperature warm water is usually safe.

Once the washing container is full of water, add your desired detergent. You can even use regular dish soap if you wish. Next, add an article of clothing and submerge entirely. You can do more than one item at a time. Leave the item or items to soak for about ten minutes.

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When you return, agitate the items with your hand or even a washing board for several minutes. Here you are acting as a human washing machine. Once finished remove each item one by one and squeeze them as dry as possible. Do not wring delicate items as this may cause damage. Empty you are washing container, if you used a bucket, set it aside and go to a location you can rinse the clothing.

Rinsing the clothing is the next step. It may take 2-3 rinses to remove all the soap. Continue to rinse until the water comes out clean. (No bubbles) Squeeze the water from the items again and hang to dry.

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