How can I dry clean my clothes at home?
Dry cleaning is a matter of love and hate. Many times, if the dry cleaning label gets dirty, you just need to hand it over to the dry cleaner, and after a day or two, you will have brand new clothes to wear. However, at the same time, dry cleaning is not cheap, and studies have shown that the dry cleaning process uses a lot of chemicals, which can seriously pollute the environment.
In fact, even though many garments are labeled "dry cleaning only", it is still feasible and even more effective to switch to washing! Just learn some fabric construction and laundry tips, and follow these four rules, and you can say goodbye to dry cleaners forever!
1. Understand your single product from the ingredients
Don't rely solely on clothes labels for laundry guidelines! Instead, as long as you learn to distinguish the fabric ingredients of clothes, you can prescribe the right medicine and make appropriate and wise laundry methods! Here are several common fabrics and their cleaning methods:
(I) Polyester, nylon, and elastane (Polyester, nylon, and spandex) - Most polyesters and nylons are fully machine washable, except that nylon may generate static electricity during the machine wash process. One of the easiest ways to solve static electricity and make your nylon clothes more durable is to dry them naturally rather than in the washing machine. Also note that elastane cannot be washed with bleach.
(Ii) Cotton and linen - Cotton and linen fabrics are prone to "shrinkage" and decolorization during machine washing. To reduce the occurrence of these two situations, just wash them in cold water and dry them naturally!
(Iii) Wool, silk and rayon - these three fabrics are not compatible with water: wool is easily knotted and "shrunk" in contact with water; silk materials are easily faded or discolored; rayon is also easily damaged in contact with water.
2. Appreciate the advantages of hand washing clothes
The word hand washing may make you feel very troublesome and disgusted. In fact, hand washing clothes is very simple and highly protective of clothes!
Washbasins, bathtubs, or simple buckets are all simple containers for hand washing - as long as the capacity allows you to completely submerge the clothes you want to wash!
When you find the right hand washing container, continue to swipe right to see the easy steps.
(I) pour water until the container is half full.
(Ii) Add an appropriate amount of hand wash detergent. Remember not to use too much laundry detergent, especially when using high-concentration laundry detergent. Otherwise, not only will you spend days and a lot of water to wash off the laundry detergent!
(Iii) Put the laundry in the water, and then "pump" it several times with both hands, so that the water and laundry detergent can fully penetrate between the fibers of the fabric.
(Iv) Soak the garment for a while. The soaking time depends largely on the fabric of the garment - more delicate and soft fabrics such as wool, cashmere, silk, etc. can only be soaked for 5-15 minutes, while thicker or more buried items, such as large jackets and dusty quilt covers, need to be soaked for several hours or even overnight.
(V) Drain the clothes after proper soaking, wipe away any detergent left in the container, and fill it with clean water. Rotate the laundry detergent between the fibers and repeat a few times until you believe there is no detergent left on the clothes.
(Vi) Press the clothes down to squeeze out the water, then roll the clothes on a dry towel to absorb more water. Remember not to wring the clothes, because the twisting and twisting action will destroy the fibers of the clothes. After absorbing the excess water, hang it on a hanger to dry naturally.
Step 3 Make good use of steam irons
Sometimes ironing is unavoidable, but most of the time steam is easier than ironing and makes clothes more durable!
Both handheld and upright steam machines are great ironing tools - preheat the steam machine and hang items, then simply sweep the clothes a few times and let it dry for about 10 minutes.
4. Get to know your washing machine well
If hand washing is still too much trouble or too complicated for you, you can definitely make good use of the washing machine at home to wash "dry cleaning only" clothes. What you need to pay attention to is the water temperature and number of rotations of the machine!
In general, the setting of a washing machine can be divided into three parts: water temperature, laundry time, and laundry speed. For "dry-only" laundry, cold water is the best choice! Similarly, shortening the laundry time can shorten the time for the laundry to be agitated by the machine. Finally, the laundry speed is related to the rate and agitation of the washing and dehydration cycle, and "dry-only" laundry is best washed at the lowest speed.
Finally, in fact, the most important thing is the method of drying: never dry your "dry-only" clothes in the washing machine! Instead, natural drying is the best method of drying clothes - so that the clothes will not be affected by heat or friction, or even damaged.
