Would you put cashmere on a woollens cycle?

[BirdyArms]

Have got 4 or 5 cashmere jumpers and cardis to wash. I normally do them by hand but DS2 is such a snotty little thing at the moment he is leaving snail trails over everyones clothes and they need washing constantly. Not very expensive cashmere - mostly GAP - but obviously don't want to ruin then. Does anyone have any happy tales of successful machine washing?

Yes - I do this and it's fine.

I have a cold wash on my machine, which i do my cashmere on and it's fine. I once risked a 30 degree wash, which was a total disaster!

yes, all my cashmere on a woollens wash @ 30 deg. Cashmere is in fact improved by washing instead of drycleaning, as it gets softer and softer. I would reccommend using woolite or persil sik and wool, giving a good shake afterwards and drying away from direct heat.

Agree with Sal - it does make it softer! Woolite is the best IMO. Avoid the special cashmere wash stuff (can't remember who makes it)...it smells awful.

Yes I wash mine on 15 degree wash.

Yes, I wash all our cashmere on wool cycle with persil silk and wool. WOuldn't buy it (cashmere) otherwise, previously it just used to sit at the bottom of the washing basket unworn.

lol flowery - I get too Darwinian on my clothes' ass.

I'm Darwinian about garden plants too. If they can't cope with frost, wind and rain, tough.

yes

I have a cheapish cashmere jumper and I wash it on woollens. I don't do hand-washing.

What Sal said and if you can turn the spinning to slower that might be an idea (on my machine you can turn it down from 900rpm to 700rpm). Often it's the too fast spinning that ruins good woollen jumpers

My washing basket was remaining full because the bottom half was crammed with fluffy jumpers of various descriptions that I had bought illadvisedly thinking wrongly that I would of course hand wash them because they were 'so lovely'.

So one day I just emptied the lot into the washing machine on wool on the grounds that I wasn't wearing them anyway. Then when they came out absolutely fine and nice and soft I cursed the (small amount of) handwashing I had done up to then.

Now I buy cashmere in a carefree manner!

Thanks all - I stuck them on a 30 degree woollens wash with my normal washing liquid and they seem to have come out OK though guess I need to wait til they're dry to be sure. Surprisingly they don't seem as clean as if I'd hand washed them - the snot on a couple is rehydrated rather then removed [puke]

In future spot-treat any blobs of food / body fluids before bunging them in the machine. Just pour a tiny blob of the detergent onto the area and massage it in.