Wisdom and experience required on washing clothes.

[toffeeapple]

Hi I was wondering if you always pretreat stains before machine washing clothes or other stuff?
Also how long is your usual daily wash cycle?
I normally select the "quick" cycle which lasts about 45 minutes but today I got so annoyed with the washing not being immaculate that I used the "daily" cycle which lasted a staggering hour and a half!! Is this long or am I totally naive?
The washing came out really clean but I also pretreated all the stains which I don't normally do. So I don't know what worked.
Basically my questions are:
Do you always pretreat stains or is it just that my washing liquid is crap?
Do I have to do a long wash or is it ok to do a 45 min one as long as I pretreat the stains?
Have you got any tips or any liquids/stain removal products to recommend to get immaculate results every time???
I will be so grateful to share your wisdom and knowledge.

Hi there,

I'm new here and a bit of a laundry obsessive! (Spent £1,300 on a miele washer!)I don't find liquid very effective and much prefer lose powder. I think a quick wash is fine on things that have not had much wear, i.e tops, trousers etc. But I always use a full wash for heavy soil, underwear, bedding & towels because they have sweat, bacteria etc on them.

I also love line drying stuff, even if it doesn't get dry, it smells great!

Mine has a time saver button which allows the machine to fill from the hot tap. This saves time because the machine is heating the water from warm. It's also useful if you have loads of hot water as we do sometimes in winter. (stove with back boiler).

can you buy white powder for white clothes?

i think i need to start using a longer cycle as mine are not really really clean clothes

i use vanish powder for whites just to keep them bright..

and sometimes spray stains on coloureds it is normally graaser patches on knees

food stains = don't cook the wash, so soak in cold water first and this includes blood as it is a "food"

Other stains = hot wash to get stain out.

Unstained clothes use quick wash

Stained /dirty clothes use proper 40 wash with or without spin.