Doing laundry really isn’t rocket science: put the dirty laundry in the machine, select easy-care, boil wash or colored wash and off you go! However, some washing machines also have a pre-wash option. Find out here when this extra wash is useful!
It’s really annoying: you take the freshly washed laundry out of the washing machine and still discover dirt on it. A prewash could have prevented this – couldn’t it?
5 cases in which a prewash makes sense
As the name suggests, the prewash is an extra wash cycle before the actual main wash. During the pre-wash, which lasts around 20 minutes, your textiles are thoroughly washed once with cold water. The pre-wash water is then pumped out and the main program starts. So far, so good – but when is the prewash useful?
Prewash for particularly heavily soiled laundry
The children have given their all in the mud puddles and your clothes clearly show the work in the garden. In such cases, a pre-wash is recommended. This removes most of the sand, dust or soil from the clothes, rinses it away and your laundry is cleaned more gently during the main wash.
Your curtains are particularly dirty
Most people don’t enjoy washing curtains. Nevertheless, you should make the effort from time to time and give your textile window charmers a bath in the washing machine. An extra pre-wash can loosen stubborn stains, but many machines nowadays also have their own curtain rinse cycle.
Your woolen blankets have stains
There are special wool washing programs to protect the delicate wool fibres. These are usually quite short. A prewash is recommended so that you can still get stubborn stains out of your wool blankets or heavy fabrics. The stains are then soaked better and can be removed in the subsequent short wool wash cycle.
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The cleaning rags need to be washed
Cleaning cloths and mops should also be washed regularly. As these often contain residues of cleaning agents, pre-washing is advisable.
Your sportswear smells strong
If you do sport, you will inevitably work up a sweat. To eliminate the unpleasant odor, which quickly spreads to other items of clothing, you should pre-wash strong-smelling sportswear. This will soak the textiles for longer and the odor can be rinsed out more easily.
Good to know: Normally, no detergent is used in the prewash. However, for particularly stubborn stains, you can add a little liquid detergent to the detergent compartment.
What else you need to know about the prewash program
Each prewash uses additional water and energy. To avoid this extra cost, you can also pre-treat heavily soiled clothes without pre-washing. Soak the textiles in a bucket or bathtub, for example, to loosen stains and incrustations. You can either add a dash of vinegar to the water or rub the stains with curd soap and then leave them to soak in the diluted lye for around 30 minutes.
Do you regularly use the pre-wash or do you prefer to skip this extra wash cycle?
Source: utopia.de
