What's the point of the wool cycle?

[NCIrishEnglish]

Loads of people have told me not to use the wool cycle to wash my wool dresses ( jumper style dresses) or wool jumper (hand knitted fair isle) because it will shrink or deshape them.

What's the point of it then?

I put my woollens in a net bag so they don't get spun out of shape. They come out fine.

Yes, to washing wool sweaters in net bags. ^^ It prevents excessive agitation, and turn down the temperature to 20. I wash bras and complicated shapes in them too, otherwise the laundry tangles.

I use it, all the hand wash only stuff would languish in my washing basket forever otherwise.

I use my wool cycle for all wool clothing including a wool blazer, and hand wash cycle for silk. I use a special delicate fabrics detergent, and no condition. Never had a shrinkage issue, and sometimes wash it at 40* which is fine. The real destroyer of wool and delicate fabrics is the spin cycle (and higher temp than 40) a wool wash has a gentler spin cycle than a normal wash.

You do need to hang it up as soon as it's done, and I find wool tends to smell like wet dog until it's dried

What will happen if I just use normal detergent?

'Normal' biological detergent contains enzymes which degrade proteins - that's how they work. Wool fibres have lots of proteins in them so they can get badly damaged by bio detergent. Ends up all rough and felted in my experience.

It's got nothing to do with spin speeds, what fucks up wool is sudden changes of temperature. Washing machines wash in warm/hot water and rinse in cold, which is what felts it up.

If you shape and smooth out a wooden garment when it's wet and lay it out flat it should be fine.

You should use a liquid soap, as it's much gentler, but if you can't be bothered to get any then use much less detergent than normal.

I wash lots of wool and never use the wool cycle, I always use the cold wash option (when I have had to buy a new machine I always check it has one).

Another option is to press pause after a hot wash, wait until the water in the machine has cooled, then press resume, but obviously this involves extra time and fannying around.