TOP 5 ECO-CARE TIPS: ORGANIC FABRICS EDITION
Best 5 tips for washing and preserve your bamboo, linen and organic cotton clothes
Switching to sustainable fashion can sometimes be quite a challenge. Nowadays, it’s easier to find stores and brands that sell sustainable clothes, but how should we wash them? What do we have to do to make all our sustainable clothes last longer? After years of washing synthetic clothes, natural and organic clothes are a world apart, and cannot be washed in the same way.
Today we will give you 5 very important tips so that your bamboo, linen or organic cotton clothes last longer and look cleaner.
In today’s blog you will discover:
- How to "Green your laundry" and wash your organic clothes in the most eco-friendly way
- How often do they have to be washed
- Why following the care instructions is so important
- How can we make our organic and natural clothes last longer (and looking as new)
1. Wash your organic clothes less
It seems a silly thing, but the less times you wash your clothes, the longer they last.
We tend to wash our clothes every time we wear them, no matter if it's been 10 minutes or 10 hours, and honestly, there are many times that clothes don't need washing if we've only worn them for a little while.
Have you ever tried to hang your half-used clothes on a hanger in an airy place and flush a little softener or diluted essential oil on it?
It looks freshly washed and you have only spent 10 minutes, and not an hour of washing!
Also try taking your clothes into the shower, hang the piece near the steam and then let it finish drying completely in an airy place. It also works for your half-used clothes that are not totally dirty. Hand Wash them as much as possible
2. Hand wash them as much as possible
Washing by hand seems like something that only our grandmothers did, but it really is a super efficient, ecological and good way to wash our organic pieces. We have to keep in mind that natural and organic fibers tend to wrinkle much more than synthetic fibers. That means that, when washing them in the machine, we damage the fibers, we create an unnecessary twist and in addition, we will have to dry and iron them always. On the other hand, when we wash by hand, we prevent them from wrinkling a lot, we do not damage the fibers and we avoid having to iron them. All benefits, as you can see!
A trick to make them whiter? Put a little soda or a little grated Marseille soap in a bowl of water and let the piece soak for a few hours before washing it.
3. Try to avoid chemical products as much as possible
As with machine washing, the chemical agents of conventional detergents can damage the natural fibers of our pieces.
Natural or organic fibers have a more delicate care. Just as you would never wash a leather jacket in the washing machine with a conventional detergent, these pieces should also not be washed with detergents that contain chemicals.
The best option is to wash these pieces with natural soaps or with Marseille soap. Today, supermarkets already sell natural, ecological detergents that do not contain as many chemicals as the conventional ones that we have been using for the last 30 years.
When we say that you better not use chemicals, we also mean any type of bleach that contains chemicals, any type of treatment for clothes or even fabric softener. In all cases, there are economical and ecological natural alternatives to wash, soften and whiten your organic clothes without damaging them with chemicals.
Our experience tells us that by washing with natural detergents and avoiding all chemical agents for laundry at all costs, our organic pieces last much longer, we can even extend their useful life by 40%!
Also keep in mind that all the information on how to wash your pieces is indicated within the piece itself or on the brand's website. In this information, you will see that it normally says to avoid bleaching agents or machine washes, but few specify why.
It is very important to inform yourself before washing your piece and to have read the washing instructions, since each material, whether it is a blend or 100% pure, has its own way of being washed.
4. Don’t bleach them! There’s other ways to make your clothes look whiter
Normally when you use bleach on your pieces it is to make them whiter, right?
If you try it on a fabric like bamboo or organic cotton, you will get your piece to be completely yellow or pink. It seems like a lie, isn’t it? Well no, it's not.
Bleaches, being a totally chemical product, are designed to disinfect, but if we try to “disinfect”, meaning we want them whiter by using bleaches, we will remove the kum from our organic pieces, a natural, non-harmful bacteria, which helps to preserve the piece, that the fiber does not break, and that our skin perspires better. By removing this natural bacteria, we leave the piece exposed to the bleach, which instantly turns it yellow. There are cases in which when putting the bleach, the piece has turned pink!
So... no bleach!
An alternative washing method to bleaching is:
- Use soda, vinegar or ecological bleaching powders so you don’t break the chain of your organic piece.
- Put a tablespoon in a bowl of warm water, soak the piece and let it act for a few hours, then rinse and wash by hand normally.
That will leave your white clothes as whiter and gorgeous as they were new!
We also leave you a link to our eco tips blog that our grandmothers left us, where you will find other ways to remove stains from your clothes in a natural and ecological way!
5. Less dryer machine, more hangers.
With the dryer we have the same problem as with the washing machine: our pieces end up having an unnecessary twist that can break the natural fibers and damage our piece with the spin.
So, the most ecological alternative and also the one that will make your pieces last longer, is to hang the pieces right after washing them.
Hang them in airy and cool places, where they are not in direct sunlight (direct sunlight can turn your pieces yellow). Let them dry as flat as possible so you won't have to use the iron, and you also avoid spending electricity. 2x1 trick!
When our pieces are dried without a dryer, the natural fibers recover their original shape, and being more relaxed means that we prevent them from breaking easily.