How to wash woolen items in a washing machine?

Wool is a very delicate and capricious material. With inappropriate care, including washing, woolen items can become deformed, stretch, become covered with pills, mat, or shrink. In order not to have to grieve over the irretrievably lost attractiveness of your favorite sweater or hat, you need to follow some rules for cleaning such products. Read on to learn how to wash wool.

Rules for washing woolen items in a washing machine

Woolen products do not need frequent washing. Ideally, they should be subjected to this cleaning method no more than twice a year.. If stains or local contamination occur, you need to clean only the problem area, and then simply refresh the item.

Experienced housewives recommend:

• Woolen products that have absorbed foreign odors only need to be ventilated with a stream of fresh air. Place a hat or blouse on the balcony, and after a while she will get rid of them;
• many contaminants can be removed with a regular clothes brush after the product has aired and dried;
• Make sure that any dirt that has arisen can only be removed by washing, and then carefully study the manufacturer’s recommendations on the label.

If you are sure that the item needs to be refreshed by machine washing, strict adherence to the instructions encoded in the schematic drawings and sewn on the inside of the item is simply necessary. Let's try to figure out these little tricks.

Which mode should I choose?

Such a capricious material like wool never wash on regular cycles for cotton or synthetics. In addition to the fact that it will become deformed and shrink, it will become matted, and in this form it will be impossible to wear the blouse.

We look at the washing machine panel and select the appropriate mode. All machines have a “delicate wash”. This is what you need to choose. With it, the drum turns half a turn, and the process is not intensive. With this effect on wool fibers, they should not become tangled with each other or stretched. Some machines have a “Wool” or “Manual” mode.. We give preference to one of the three or a similar one, if it is provided in your car.

Typewriter mode icon

It is possible that you have never used the washing options mentioned, and there is no way to look at the instructions. Therefore, look for the mode designation on the front panel of the machine. In some cases, the selected option is only signed with a word, and in other models of machines, instead of an inscription, a special icon may be used, depicting a bowl of water, but not the one that indicates rinsing.

In our case hand plunges into basin. This is the image that is placed on the panel near the switch handle for modes recommended for washing wool or delicate fabrics.

At what temperature should I wash?

Hot water has a detrimental effect on natural wool fibers. Very cold water is also not to the liking of natural material. You need to set the temperature to no more than 40 degrees, for some things – no more than 30. Similar designations should be on the product label. Vending machines usually have the designation 40, but 30 is not available everywhere. Instead, there may be the inscription “Cold water”, which fully corresponds to the mode - no more than 30 degrees.

What means should I use?

To wash woolen products, you need to purchase only special products with inscriptions that are adapted to cleaning natural fibers. If you have a choice between powder and gel, then it is better to give preference to liquid detergent. It gets along well with the material and is completely rinsed out, which cannot be said even about the best specialized powder.

If you don't have wool detergent, pour some shampoo directly into the drum. It will replace SMS, and completely rinsing it is not necessary. Having residue on the surface of the sweater will act as a conditioner and make the wool slightly fluffy and soft.

What should you not do when washing in an automatic machine?

First and most important - never tumble woolen items. Do this manually and very carefully. It is best to allow the water to drain on its own and then lay the product out to dry without a heating radiator, hair dryer, iron or similar things that can irrevocably damage your favorite item.

Important! Wool is exceptionally hygroscopic, absorbing very large amounts of water. Remember this when loading dry items into the drum: with the help of moisture, they will turn into bulky and heavy items. Do not overload the automatic machine.

There are a few more prohibitive rules to keep in mind:

• do not soak woolen items before washing, there is a high probability of thread stretching;
• do not remove stains with bleach (although similar advice can be found in print and on the Internet), your favorite sweater will not withstand such aggressive influence, it will tear, but not necessarily immediately - the fibers thinned as a result of a chemical attack will continue to perform their previous functions, and the burden will be great for them. The result is rubbing or tearing of the fabric;
• do not change the temperature during the washing process, wool does not like sharp fluctuations, which destroy its fibers;
• Woolen items should not be placed in the drum without being turned inside out. This is done to preserve the attractive appearance of the product, since it is not the front side that will be subject to abrasion, but the back side;
• Place wool items separately from items made from other types of fabrics and package them by color to avoid shedding. This happens infrequently with wool, but colored fibers that have stuck to another product will be very difficult to remove or remove in any way;
• Immediately after washing is complete, remove the items from the machine drum, let the water drain, or gently wring them out and lay them out to dry on a horizontal surface.. To do this, first lay a clean towel in several layers, a cotton blanket or blanket.

Important! After washing, you can lightly dry the product by rolling it in a long-pile terry towel.

Advice from professionals

Washing in potato broth will help soften a wool sweater:

• To do this, place a kilogram of peeled or brushed potatoes in a 10-liter bucket of water;
• drain the boiled water and cool to 40 degrees (the temperature is checked with your elbow, which can comfortably withstand a temperature of 36–40 degrees);
• after washing the product in the machine, rinse it in this broth;
• dry in natural conditions on a flat horizontal surface;
• Brush the sweater with a soft brush to create a low, even pile.

And a few more tips:

1. Before washing, remove all accessories if they can damage the product or cause a change in its color;
2. on the blouse, use a regular seam through the top to sew up the button holes to prevent the product from being pulled out in these places;
3. try not to wash the wool for a long time; it should not be in water for more than 40 minutes;
4. if you are not sure about the quality of wool dyeing, then cut a small piece of thread from the inside and soak it in warm water. After this, wrap and dry with a light cotton cloth. This is a color fastness test. If there are no marks left on the fabric, then everything is in order - the wool does not shed;
5. Do not place things made of angora, alpaca, or mohair in an automatic machine. If dry cleaning is not possible, wash them very carefully by hand.