How to Hand Wash Clothes

As you get older, you have to become more responsible and start doing your own chores like doing laundry. You also soon realize there's dry clean only and hand wash only clothes. Hand washing clothes is quite the process that I almost prefer just paying someone to dry clean them. I never really knew the true technique to hand washing clothes until I did some research. I thought I'd pass my knowledge along:

I prefer a sink because it makes the process easier.

Pour no more than half a cap full of detergent. Trust me, you won't need that much.

Follow the instructions on the garment. Most say hand wash in cold water. Run that temperature while pouring in the detergent.

Fill it high enough to cover the clothes you're adding. Also, just like you would when machine washing, wash similar colors even if it's cold water. Colors will bleed! I had a bright pink sweater stain an ivory blouse before (such a nightmare!).

Occasionally stir the clothes like they would be in a washing machine. You can use a large utensil or other instrument to do the stirring, I just use my hands. Leave the garments to soak for approximately 30 minutes.

Drain the water out completely. I prefer to use a sink because as you drain out the water you can also rinse the clothes with new water to remove extra detergent.

Squeeze as much water from the garments as you can before removing and then wrap up in a towel to finish drying. Instructions below:

For heavier garments, I let them stay in the towel for a couple hours and step on it for good measure.

Unwrap garment from towel and hang dry. Usually this takes over night.

A few wrinkles but you can iron those out.

I told you it was a process! Hopefully this helped and you'll be a hand washing pro.