How to wash clothes properly if you have hard water: useful tips

Hard water doesn't just cause problems in the form of limescale in the kettle and stains on the plumbing. It also significantly affects the quality of your laundry. First of all, due to excessive salts, detergents foam more than necessary, and the remains of this foam are difficult to remove. It's also difficult to rinse out the clothes. Therefore, the question of how to soften washing water remains relevant for Ukraine, because our tap water is hard almost everywhere.

Lifehacker has collected several effective ways to deal with this problem. None of them will require the purchase of additional equipment

Add vinegar

To soften water during washing, it is better to use white or distilled vinegar. It will not leave stains and will smell less. Vinegar has the ability to neutralise the minerals in water that make it hard.

For the product to work, just add the vinegar during the rinsing stage. Pour half a cup of liquid into the detergent tray. This will help to thoroughly rinse out any residual foam and minerals from the clothes, leaving them softer and feeling cleaner and fresher.

If you have been washing clothes in hard water for a long time and they have turned grey or stained, you can soak them in a vinegar solution overnight. Mix it with water in a 1:1 ratio to get the required amount of liquid, immerse your clothes or laundry in it, and wash it in the morning as usual. The problem with dull colours and grey patches should be solved.

Use baking soda for washing

Unlike baking soda, which is sodium bicarbonate, washing soda is sodium carbonate, which means it does not contain a hydrogen atom in its molecule, which slightly changes its properties. In particular, it softens water very well. You can find it commercially under the name soda ash or crystal soda. Simply add half a cup of this powder to the detergent in the next wash or pour it directly into the drum.

Choose your detergent carefully

Modern detergents and washing gels often already contain softening agents. If you set out to do so, you can even find products that contain vinegar. In any case, liquid laundry formulas are better at resisting hard water than powdered ones.

Earlier, OBOZREVATEL told how to clean a washing machine from limescale caused by hard water.

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