Chemical Free Alternative to Dry Cleaning Silks – Cashmere – Sweaters
Soap nuts are the mildest additive free laundry detergent I have ever found, especially for washing delicates, lingerie, silks, cashmere, sweaters, and wool.
I work at home so I rarely drag out the fancy dress up clothes. However, this past weekend a group of our friends went to Ft. Lauderdale for a boxing event and a weekend away.
Boy did I miss my super soft soap nuts laundered bed linens and towels. That’s another story though.
The point of this post is that since we did the dress up thing I wore several of my silk suits and since they had not been “dry cleaned” in months (or longer) I felt they needed a little freshening up. Soap nuts to the rescue once again.
I had not actually washed any of my silk clothes in the washing machine previously, usually resorting to expensive and stinky dry cleaning to keep the silk looking good. Sometimes my silk came back from the cleaners stiff as a board, which really made me mad. But since I started using soap nuts I wash most of our dry clean only clothes in the washing machine on either gentle or hand wash cycles, in cold water and then dry them on low heat. Soap nuts are a perfect chemical free alternative to dry cleaning, and much less expensive.
Truth is I had a big pile of “dry cleaning” sitting on a shelf in my closet because I just couldn’t bring myself to pay someone to put toxic chemicals on my clothes. I’d rather not wear them, than add to the chemical pollution on the planet. A few days before we left for our weekend I took the plunge and machine washed several pairs of lined silk slacks and jackets, as well as some cashmere sweater sets for the evenings.
Let me tell you, my silk looked gorgeous, was super soft (the only reason I wear it) and needed virtually no pressing because there were only light wrinkles in it from the suit bag being folded.
One common problem with washing cashmere, wool, cotton, and even synthetic fiber sweaters is stretching (sagging). Another common problem is sweater pilling. You know those fuzzy lumps stuck all over the sweater that you have to comb to get rid of.
Well, since it’s been cool in Central Florida our sweaters got dragged out of the space bags and even after several washing and wearing not a single pill, no shrinking or sagging, and soft as they can be.
Funny that the big detergent manufacturers are now marketing special products for fading and sagging problems with bright colored clothes and sweaters. Funny because their own products are the cause of the problems in the first place. Soap nuts preserve the life and looks of your clothes naturally.
Man I love my soap nuts.
So if you often take clothes to the dry cleaners, consider machine washing in cold using soap nuts. Using soap nuts as a chemical free alternative to dry cleaning will save the planet, save you lots of money, and extend the life of your clothes.
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