Doing a load of laundry seems so simple. You toss your clothes in, add soap, hit a random button, and hope for the best, right? If that’s your usual laundry day routine, chances are you’ve experienced more than a few shrunken or dyed items, leftover soap residue, or even permanently damaged clothes.
As it turns out, there is an official way to do laundry. For best results, let Laundry Care Express;residential laundry services save you time by taking care of your household laundry. Or, stick to the following steps to get the perfect load of clean clothes at home.
- Separate your laundry by color
You probably already know that washing a single red shirt with your white delicates can leave you with a machine full of pink-tinged clothing. However, few people put in the effort to separate light loads, dark loads, and mismatched colors, so they end up with dulled or tinted items over time. To preserve the quality of your clothes, it’s best to sort by color before you throw clothes in the washer.
- Check the tags for special washing instructions
Some fabrics tolerate different wash cycles and water temperatures better than others. A lacy top that calls for a hand-wash cycle in cold water won’t fare well if you put it in the same load as your bath towels you wash with hot water.
If you own a lot of dress shirts, washing each one according to their instructions can be a pain. Depending on the fabric, some shirts may need dry cleaning, extra starch, stain removal, or other special treatments that you might not have the time to do at home. A great dress shirt laundry service can give you crisp, clean dress shirts. You won’t have to waste time figuring out why your iron won’t flatten that troublesome seam properly.
- Add any pre-wash or stain removal treatments
Once you’ve sorted your clothes and double-checked the tags, you can stain-stick or pre-treat to any areas as needed.
- Load the washing machine to just the right level
Unless you’re lucky enough to have an industrial-strength washer at home, you’ll need to pay attention to how you load your machine. Older models often require you to balance the load evenly within the drum to prevent the machine from spinning off balance in the middle of a spin cycle.
If you sometimes notice your clothes come out less clean than you’d hoped, chances are you’ve been over-filling your machine. Try smaller loads for better results.
- Measure your detergent carefully
Too much detergent and t you’ll have to walk around in clothes spotted with soap residue. Don’t you hate that? It is recommended that you use the correct amount of detergent every time. The amount of laundry soap will depend on the size of your laundry load and the type of detergent you use. Refer to the back of the detergent bottle for measuring instructions.
- Choose the appropriate water temperature and wash cycle
Select the water temperature and wash cycle based on the wash instruction tags on the items in the current load. If the items in a load call for a “delicate” cycle in cold water then choose those settings to keep your clothes in good shape.
The New York Times says most laundry can safely be done in cold water, but we still recommend following the instructions on your clothing tags.
- Start your load.
Now you’re ready to go! Hit the start button.
While you’re waiting for your laundry to finish, ask yourself why you’re still spending all weekend doing laundry for the whole family when you could be out doing pretty much anything else.
Once that load of laundry is done, you have to worry about drying all the items, pressing them or folding and hanging them to avoid wrinkles. Not to mention, you still have to drop off your dry cleaning that you can’t do at home.
With a laundry pick up service, you could have all of that done for you with little more than the click of a button.
Conveniently, that’s exactly what Laundry Care Express provides with our residential laundry services. Schedule a laundry pick up to get started today.