Prevent shrinking of clothes.?
Question:i heard that wash with cold water, and hang dry is the way to go, but does this eliminate shrinking all together or is it just minimal shrinking. also any tips on dealing with the stiffness of hang drying?
Answers:
If clothing is 100% cotton, there will be some shrinkage. Cold water wash is best to treat that. Use liquid fabric softener in the rinse and shake clothes vigorously befor hanging on the lines to help with the stiffness. If there is still stiffenss, then your machine may not be getting all of the detergent out of the laundry in the rinse cycle,so I would wait on the softner and do a second rinse cycle and add softener to that cycle.
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The heat from drying clothes in the dryer cause the fibers in the fabric to contract. Hanging them up to dry is the best way to go.
Use white vinegar in the rinse and in the final rinse cycle use liquid fabric softener and they will not be stiff.
that's the way to go. You can pull out the iron to get rid of some of the stiffness.
Over the years that we have been doing hang drying in our household, but we have found that there always will be a little bit of shrinkage after one wash, but by and far, hang drying minimizes the shrinkage on cotton blend items such as t-shirts, in which the dryer really does a number on, you really don't want the shrinkage and wear and tear that a dryer does on them. We have some old shirts that look practically brand new, because we hang dry them. Depending on the fabric blends, you may not really notice the shrinkage after it is hang dried, it varies. Generally they stretch back some after wearing them. Some items such as underwear may get stiff when hang dried but that generally goes away after you wear them as well. I hope this helps in your decision!
--Dancougar
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