How to properly wash capricious woolen items with your hands and in a typewriter?

Woolen things are loved by many. Things made from natural or blended wool can definitely be found in every wardrobe. They are loved for the beauty and comfort that they give. But not everyone knows how to wash woolen things so that they do not lose their appearance and shape. Hence - a whole heap of spoiled clothes in almost every home. Something stretched out, something hopelessly settled ... You can avoid such troubles. The main thing is to know how to approach wool.

At what temperature and how to wash wool?

So how do you find common ground with woolen products? The first thing that any owner of such clothes thinks about is how to keep the shape of your favorite sweater after washing? What to do to prevent the product from shrinking, stretching, or falling over? In fact, there are many things you can do. But all these rules are quite simple and easy to follow.

Paradoxically, it is better not to wash the wool. Rather, do it as rarely as possible - only if necessary to remove specific dirt or stains. In other cases, it is recommended to periodically (2-3 times a year) hang a wardrobe item on the street or balcony for airing. Fresh air flows are enough to refresh the product and get rid of foreign odors.

But if washing is already inevitable, you need to prepare for it first theoretically: to learn a lot of subtleties. There are three main and most important ones that influence the shape of the washed products as much as possible:

• temperature and its invariability;
• drum speed for machine wash (friction and spin - for hand wash);
• correct drying.

So the temperature. For demanding wool, it should not exceed 30-35 degrees, otherwise the product will inevitably shrink or stretch. But for high-quality washing of woolen things, observing only this rule is not enough. It is equally important that soaking, washing and rinsing are carried out at the same temperature. Yes, the value of 10 degrees does not exceed 35. But if you wash the thing with warm water and then rinse with cool water, the shrinkage will be much more obvious. Sometimes this is not even shrinkage, but local deformation (only cuffs or only armpits), and after that it can be problematic to restore the shape of the products.

Mechanical stress (friction, spinning) is another primary evil for woolen products. At the same time, they run the risk of not only sitting or stretching, but also significantly collapsing or being covered with pellets. So no spin when washing woolen clothes! The minimum of rubbing and washes, the minimum value of the drum speed of the machine are important subtleties on the way to the longevity of knitted items.

Drying such clothes also needs to be done correctly. Mistakes during drying, the main of which is drying on a rope, also lead to deformation of knitted items, which stretch under their own weight.

Means for hand and machine washing of wool

It is clear that products made from this material cannot be washed with anything: a capricious material is susceptible to the negative effects of unsuitable detergents. Woolen items can become rough, prickly, lose their original luster, get stains in the form of streaks of uncleaned powder, and fall off.

If you plan to wash the thing by hand, then rubbing the product with a piece of laundry soap is fundamentally wrong. And it will be difficult to rinse out such foam, and the worn-out places will fall off.

A more gentle option may be suitable here - shavings from baby soap. But first you need to make sure that the product is completely dissolved in the water, and then beat it well with your hands. This delicate thick foam can gently and efficiently wash the knitted product. Another alternative is using hair shampoo. After all, wool is also hair, only of animal origin. Therefore, natural shine and softness after such a product will be guaranteed.

For washing in the machine, there are special powders designed for wool. They necessarily have a designation - intended for washing woolen products. However, more delicate and effective are liquid products. They are already in a dissolved state, wash well, soften the fibers, preventing pilling and pilling, and are easily washed out.

Washing with even the most delicate wool detergent will not help make your favorite clothes really soft if the water is hard. Therefore, the use of special softeners for hard water when washing woolen items is mandatory.

For bleaching, if necessary, chlorine-containing substances cannot be used - they will destroy the delicate texture.

Use regular table vinegar to bleach wool. It will not only make things whiter, but also soften the fibers, give them shine. Hydrogen peroxide is also suitable for these purposes.

How to wash and dry properly?

And now - the main "common truths" of washing, as well as subsequent drying of wool. What and how to do - right?

• Excessive contact of the product with water should be avoided. Soaking and washing should not exceed an hour in total, otherwise the fibers will swell and lose their elasticity. As a result, the canvas will hopelessly stretch.
• For this reason, woolen items in the washing machine should be washed, choosing only delicate modes, and the spin should be turned off altogether.
• No aggressive action is allowed during hand wash! The process should be reduced to the delicate "mixing" of the product in a bowl with soapy water. Pressing, rubbing, twisting, crushing with force is like killing an expensive beautiful thing. Loss of shape and pellets are assured.
• Hand washing will require a lot of water as the fibers absorb it a lot.
• You need to rinse such things several times until the water becomes completely transparent. Otherwise, there is a risk not only to make clothes tough, squeaky, but also to reward them with ugly stains. In addition, many people are allergic to detergent residues on their clothes.
• Wool clothes cannot be wrung out. Therefore, after washing, things must be placed in a basin to allow the water to drain off naturally.
• The next step is to gently wrap the sweater several times one by one in large terry towels to allow them to absorb any remaining moisture.
• It is necessary to dry such products by carefully spreading them out on a horizontal surface, ideally with air circulation from below (this can be a home dryer on which a terry towel is placed).
• Heat and dry air are two more enemies of wool. From them, it very quickly becomes brittle and destroyed. Therefore, drying on radiators or heaters is absolutely contraindicated for it: the temperature in tandem with dry air will do their destructive work quickly.
• Hanging on ropes or even hangers will ruin the woolen garment too. Having absorbed a lot of water, it will drastically stretch out during drying.

Even if your clothes do not fade for sure, you need to wash light and dark ones separately. The villi from one product can stick to the surface of another and ruin the whole picture. It can be difficult to fix such an incident.

What to do if the woolen item shrinks after washing?

Unfortunately, no one is immune from such a nuisance. Perhaps the hostess "sat down" the blouse out of ignorance, perhaps she missed something in the process of caring for the clothes. But now she faces a problem: how to stretch the woolen thing back? There are ways to resolve this issue, but their effectiveness will depend on the degree of shrinkage of the wool, its composition, knitted pattern, and other factors. Therefore, it is difficult to give a 100% guarantee.

So, you can try the following "recipes".

• If the wool contains synthetics, you can stretch such shrunken clothes by soaking for one and a half to two hours in a solution of cold water with hydrogen peroxide (about 2 tablespoons for every 10 liters of water). After removing excess water, the product should be laid out on a firm horizontal surface with a terry towel. From time to time it is necessary to stretch the shrunken thing, giving the required shape.
• A 100% woolen sweater that has shrunk after a wrong wash can be reanimated by spreading it wet on an ironing board with a terry towel that will not shed. Next, you need to iron the thing through a white cloth or gauze, gently stretching in the right places.
• You can use table vinegar for this purpose - they need to soak a sponge and process the surface of the blouse, then lay the product on a flat surface, stretching it to the desired size, and leave it to dry.
• If you wash the woolen garment with shampoo, and then fix it on a horizontal surface in the desired state with pins until it dries completely, you can also return the jumper to its lost size.
• Washing in such a solution can help: 5 liters of water, 3 tablespoons of ammonia, a spoonful of turpentine. The process is the same: soak the item for a couple of hours in this composition, rinse, fix, dry.

Caring for woolen clothes is a painstaking process that requires certain knowledge. But now that they are obtained, it will be much easier to cope with the characteristics of the coat. And this means that things from it will faithfully serve their owners for the allotted time, without upsetting surprises like shrinkage or dumping.