How to wash your woollens
Updated: Apr 26, 2020
General tips on how to care for your woollens in more details.
Caring for wool is easy. Wool is naturally stain resistant, odour resistant and also crease resistant, so actually requires less washing. This means that caring for wool is both easy and gentle on the planet.
Wash sparingly. I know I’ve said it before- unless it is indeed dirty, give your wool a good airing, and avoid washing it unnecessarily. It’s one of the great benefits of wool, along with others of course!
But when it is time to wash wool clothes, you can either wash them in a washing machine, or hand wash with ease.
Handwashing
Hand washing wool is quick and easy. Follow these simple steps and you'll be out of the laundry in no time!
Turn your wool garment inside out, this way any piling that might happen should happen on the inside of the garment as it rubs with other items in the wash, then hand wash in clean, warm water, approximately 30°C, using a mild and gentle detergent, preferebly suitable for wool.
Allow to soak for a period of 10 minutes or so, before rinsing thoroughly firstly in lukewarm water.
I use Woolite when washing my Lambswool products as it is a delicate detergent suitable for specifically wool (and other fibres too) making them even softer and smelling fresh.
Rinse it a couple of times. Try to keep all rinses the roughly the same temperature, as changing it may shock the wool and cause it to felt and shrink.
After washing give them a gentle squeeze to squeeze out any excess water, but make sure not to wring. Place flat on a towel, in the right shape, and roll it up like a swiss roll. This will help get rid of excess water.
Knitted pieces should be dried flat and do not hang them as this might result in stretching the fabric.
Machine washing
Did you know, you can wash Knitluxe Studio garments in the washing machine?
Washing wool is really easy and many wool garments can be machine washed, meaning more time to do the things you enjoy. Make sure that your washing machine is equipped with the approved Woolmark logo to wash woollens.
Wool garments should be washed on the wool setting (usually gentle action at 30°C).
Make sure the cycle is suitable for woollens. This is very important- it is not the same as the delicate cycle, so do not treat them as identical!
30 degrees is fine for wool.
Turn the rpm down a little. I adjust the rpm on my machine to 900 for wool. It could probably be a bit higher, but I don’t like to risk it. This means I’m agitating the knitwear less.
Dry it flat, away from direct heat. Do not hang them and do NOT tumble dry on normal cycle.
This again is very important that woollen garments can only be tumble dried if has the Woolmark Apparel Care symbol on it, which means that your machine has passed rigorous and independent testing and has been approved by The Woolmark Company.
If you are unsure and have a question, please do not hesitate and get in touch, I'm more than happy to help!
