Care for your clothes

Wash them right – for the sake of the environment and your clothes! Thinking about how you wash your clothes will help to lessen your environmental impact and conserve natural resources – and your clothes will also last longer.

Washing instructions
The washing instructions for your garment sometimes contain extra information on caring for the specific item. Please check the washing intstructions label in each garment.

Here are a few more tips on caring for certain materials and garments.

Details 
For best long lasting care wash delicate garments with details in a laundry bag.

Viscose
Viscose is a natural material and can easily get misshapen when wet. To restore the garment easily to its original shape, iron it with a steam iron.

Denim
Wash jeans inside out to stop them fading. Remove them from the washing machine as soon as possible after the programme has ended to avoid creasing. Denim's characteristic appearance is the result of a special dyeing method. As a result, small pigment particles may remain on the surface and can rub off.

Washing clothes and the environment
Lucky Ellen works actively on environmental matters related to production and transport in order to limit our environmental impact. The greatest share of energy consumption, however, occurs when you wash your clothes.

• Don't wash clothes unnecessarily
  Don't wash clothes that are not dirty. Often, airing and brushing clothes is enough.
  
  
• Lower the washing temperature
  Lucky Ellen always labels its garments with the highest permitted temperature. But you can select a lower washing temperature to save energy. Most detergents wash just as well at lower temperatures.  We recommend that heavily soiled clothes should be washed at the highest temperature to reduce stains and dirt. But do not wash your garments at hotter temperatures than stated in the washing instructions.
  
  
• Fill your washing machine
  Sort the clothes by color and washing temperature. Fill up your washing machine, but don't stuff too much in. A washing machine is full when you can place a clenched fist on top of the washing without compressing the clothes. Use an energy saving programme – most modern washing machines have one.
  
  
• Choose a "green" detergent
  Use an environmentally friendly detergent that is free from optical whiteners and phosphates, since these have a negative environmental impact when released into nature. Dose the detergent as stated on the packaging. Overdosing detergent will not make your clothes cleaner. To get the dose right, you need to know whether you have hard or soft water.
  
  
• Avoid dry cleaning
  Dry cleaning is a process in which the clothes are cleaned using an organic solvent. Dry cleaning has a negative environmental impact when the solvent is released into nature. Today, there are also greener methods of dry cleaning that clean the clothes using only water and carbon dioxide reclaimed from industry. This type of dry cleaning therefore does not release chemicals.
  
  
• Leave your washing out to dry
  It is preferable to leave your washing out to dry since tumble drying and drying cabinets use a lot of energy. To reduce drying time, spin the clothes well before taking them out of the washing machine.
  
  
• Give away your clothes!
  When you no longer have a use for clothes, give them to someone else or an organisation that can extend the garment's life or why not sell them at e-bay!