How to Care For Your Bras
Edit: I’ve decided to update this post. It now matches the information in my “Wash and Care” guide page.
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WASH & CARE GUIDE
Basic Care Check List
- To prolong the life of your lingerie, wash in cold or tepid water with a gentle detergent. I recommend hand washing, but machine washing on a gentle cycle in cold water will also do the trick.
- Make sure to use a garment bag if you’re machine washing, and hook up your bras to avoid any tears in delicate materials
- Never put your bras in the dryer. The heat breaks down the elastic, can change the size of your bra, or cause a wire to pop out long before its time.
- Try not to fold the cups of your lined/padded/moulded bras into each other. This can distort the cup shape, creating little bumps and indents. Either hang these bras if you have the closet space, or stack them on top of one another in a drawer or whatever storage area you have available.
- If possible, don’t wear your bras two days in a row. You want to give the elastic time to settle back to its original position. Wearing a bra for consecutive days will stretch out the elastic quicker.
Hand Washing Guide
- Fill up your sink or a basin with either cold or tepid water.
- Mix in a gentle detergent (specialty lingerie wash, baby detergent, even some soaps work well) and let it get sudsy!
- Put your garments into the water (try to keep your loads separated by lights and darks). Press the soapy water through the areas that you want to make sure get thoroughly cleaned, and soak your items for about 10-15 minutes.
- Once soaking is complete, rinse your garments until the water runs clean. However, if you’re using a detergent like Soak or Eucalan there’s no need to rinse! Just remove your garments from the water.
- Pat with a towel to remove the excess moisture, and then simply hang to dry. I recommend hanging your bras by the center gore so that the straps don’t stretch out.
Now it’s time for you to get washing!
I usually rinse in a large basin 3-4 times (until water become absolutely clear). It’s more visible this way if all detergent is out or not (I’m allergic and have rather sensitive skin, so it’s important for me),
I’ll update the post to include that if you have sensitive skin, you may want to rinse more thoroughly. Thanks!
This is great! I was an adamant hand-washer there for a while, but I’ve found my sports bras and other heavy-rotation bras need a little extra, so I do delicate-cycle-with-delicate-soap-in-a-bag machine washing now. The dryer = death to all bras. You know that cat picture drew me in. It’s so cute I kind of can’t handle it.
If you’re super lazy like me, you can also buy Soak detergent, which is amazing for getting sweat stains out of lingerie and doesn’t need to be rinsed out.
Seconded, Soak is amazing. I just fill the sink with water, add a bit of Soak, and leave my bras in the sink while I’m showering, then hang them up after.
Leaving them to soak while showering sounds so efficient that I’ll just have to start doing that as well. Thanks!
I’ve always been told, when hanging a bra to dry, always drape it across the clothes line at the center gore instead of pinning it at one end of the band to avoid the band to stretch uneven.
I’ve still got a backlog of blog posts to catch up on but I swear as of this moment (and several care guides/posts) this is the most complete I’ve seen yet. GREAT JOB! I feel like this is the absolute best way to care for our investments. 🙂 🙂
Thank you so much!
When u men sensitive skin do u mean acne?
Nope! Just easily irritated by harsh fabrics/detergents, etc. Not so much acne, more just prone to itchiness