Are you washing your MF towels well enough?

[joburnet]

I recently found that my MF's were scratching because they were too dirty and I just couldn't get them clean. My solution was to use my current ones for interior only and get all new MF's for exterior that I only use to buff with.

 

[Accumulator]

DFTowel and I have discussed this before, although we were primarily talking about cotton towels. He even offered to check out one of my stiff-as-a-board towels if I'd send it to him (Inever got around to it ) . He was, of course, right- it was built up contamination/excess detergent. Both on/in the towel and in the machine. That and my crappy (even after double-filtering and softening) water made for some messed up towels and it took some rather drastic measures to correct things.



Getting the excess detergent out of the towels really *CAN* take an incredible amount of washing/rinsing! Somebody saying you're being excessive is like saying somebody is polishing too much- each situation calls for whatever it calls for and you can't generalize.



When I had one of our washing machines serviced, I was astounded at how much crap had built up inside of it. Detergent and dirt residue, etc. It was nasty and I never could've gotten things "clear" with that machine!



Vienegar and Micro-Restore are good ways to go :xyxthumbs

 

[JasonD]

Thanks for all your help, Accumulator, my towels are like new again! You were right about everything, including how many rinses it would take to get all the build up out! :shocked

 

[SilverLexus]

Bubbles don't clean, they are just there to make you think they do.

I'm not sure I agree...I think sudsing is an important indicator of cleaning strength. I think I heard this way back in my organic chemistry class. Soaps work by attaching to dirt molecules and lifting them away - one reason why a gentle rinse after the washing is usually more effective - you don't want to break the soap bonds.



Maybe Mr. Chemist will chime in and give us some theory background...



***I am surprised so many people here use regular laundry detergent on MF. I really think, although it is slightly more expensive, that the MF specialty detergents are far more effective.



I might also mention that I find air drying is the only way to go and I use a short spin cycle on the wash (and a gentle wash cycle for that matter as well).

 

[III]

:shocked You "don't use that much soap"? How much is not much? 14 rinses before you seen clear water?

I said that I've done up to 14 rinses. This doesn't mean that I do 14 rinses everytime. I usually do 5.

 

[III]

I am also doing same like Antonio Wright

Instead of SHOUT I use Simple Green All Purpose Cleaner for pretreating stains:nixweiss

Wouldn't this ruin the microfiber?

 

[Bill D]

Liquid Tide, anywhere from 1/4- 1/2 cap depending on quantity of towels. Warm wash, warm rinse. Cool - warm dryer till they're mostly dry...I never completely dry them out. Take them home and hang'em up to finish drying. Towels are still in great shape



I have heard of Melaleuca stuff before, where can I get some??

I think you can buy directly from http://www.melaleuca.com

Otherwise, you'd have to get in touch with a distributor, the website should tell you everything you need to know.

 

[Bill D]

***I am surprised so many people here use regular laundry detergent on MF. I really think, although it is slightly more expensive, that the MF specialty detergents are far more effective.



I might also mention that I find air drying is the only way to go and I use a short spin cycle on the wash (and a gentle wash cycle for that matter as well).

The Mela Power followed by a vinegar rinse does the job for me. Drying via dryer usually until slightly damp and then air drying works just fine.

 

[LT1Squirrel]

gotta bring this back up....if ma dukes is using the washer at the time, i get 2 five gallon buckets, both filled with dawn....bucket one i let them sit in there for however much time i feel like waiting around for, then i take them out, hose em off, and try to get as much crap off as possible....then i throw them in the other bucket and grab my grandma stone washed grate thing that they used to use pre-washer days:bow ....rub them on there and everything comes out clean and pretty:xyxthumbs

 

[medic159]

...The question here is, are we getting all the soap/detergent out? I think the answer is multiple rinse cycles ...

I've been a proponent for a long time that whatever the detergent bottle says to use just cut that in half. They aleways tell you to use way too much, they want to sell more after all.



- Cut your liquid detergent quantity by at least half

- ALWAYS use hot water and hot or warm rinse

- Use about a tablespoon of distilled white vinegar per towel in the rinse

- If you can use a hot dryer without damage then do so, otherwise warm.



This is all I do and all my towels (mine and others) stay clean and fluffy.

 

[Raven]

DFTowel, you say you use only half! Does this include MF only detergents like Micro-Restore or is it only for regular laundry detergents?

 

[superstring]

DFTowel, you say you use only half! Does this include MF only detergents like Micro-Restore or is it only for regular laundry detergents?

I, too, would like to know this.



Also, I'm surprised at the number of people using HOT water to wash their MFs. I can understand that this might be OK with "natural" fibre, like DF Towels, but what about synthetic MF? All the instructions I've seen for washing synthetic MF (and, let's face it, these are the majority) recommend cold or warm water

 

[imported_NYV6Coupe]

Even though I consider 125* "hot", this is where my water heater is set to prevent scalding, I doubt this is hot enough to damage MF.



Perhaps someone has sacrificed a MF & tried boiling it?

 

[imported_Macgirl1]

Someone here turned me on to Charlie's Soap and it really is a great product. Cleans well and rinses clean without having to add vinegar to the rinse cycle. I even got some of the APC and use it as a spot cleaner for laundry. You can get either product in 500ml bottles or the more cost-effective gallon jugs. I've used it on my MF towels and our clothes, works well on both so I don't have to have a dozen different powder and liquid detergents littering up my laundry closet.



Wash a medium load with 1 ounce of Charlie's Soap in warm water. Dry on low or air dry setting.



I like SONUS Wunder Wasche also, both these detergents are very similar in their cleaning abilities. I like Charlie's because I can get it in gallon sizes and is a bit more cost-effective that way.

 

[togwt]

Quote: I'm not sure I agree...I think sudsing is an important indicator of cleaning strength. I think I heard this way back in my organic chemistry class. Soaps work by attaching to dirt molecules and lifting them away - one reason why a gentle rinse after the washing is usually more effective - you don't want to break the soap bonds.



~One manâ€â„¢s opinion / observations~



[Edit spelling 11.24.04]



Synthetic Soap:

Before the advent of synthetic cleaners animal fats were used to make soap by boiling lard and adding a saponifier (a high pH alkaline) producing soap.



In order to be able to control and manipulate the characteristics of cleaners (soaps and detergents) chemists formulated synthetic cleaners with a homogeneous blend of surfactants, solvents, hyper-wetting agents, chelators, sequestant and an anionic micelle structures which all become super-active when processed together.



Surfactants- a surfactant is defined as a material that can greatly reduce the surface tension of water when used in very low concentrations. A particular type of molecular structure performs as a surfactant, these molecules form micelle structures the hydrophobic (water-insoluble) micelle holds solids in suspension and prevents them from being redeposit.



The hydrophilic ionic micelle (water-soluble) reduces the soils to micro-sized particles to enable them to be flushed away. Combined these two molecules form structures called micelles



Solvents-are required to dissolve certain soils, like petroleum, oils, grease and etc, these solvents can be citrus-based, water or mineral spirits



Chelators-are required to control the adverse effects of hard water that contains high concentrations of iron, calcium, magnesium and other trace elements and binds them together



Sequestant-this holds the trace elements in suspension allowing the cleaners to concentrate on the soil.



Amino functional surfactants-these are added so that the wetting agents penetrate and encapsulate the soils to enable their removal



Anionic-is a synthetic agent that provides very low foaming (suds) with very efficient surface rinsing, while avoiding any re-depositing of the soils and eliminating any chemical surface â€Ëœfilmâ€â„¢



~Hope this helps~



Knowledge unshared is experience wasted [each one / teach one]

justadumbarchitect / so I question everything/ JonM

 

[III]

Even though I consider 125* "hot", this is where my water heater is set to prevent scalding, I doubt this is hot enough to damage MF.



Perhaps someone has sacrificed a MF & tried boiling it?

I've boiled a towel about 3 months ago just to see what would happen. I boiled it at 200 degrees for 10 minutes. The only thing that happened was the color faded. No harm done to the fibers. Now, I wouldn't recommend to boil microfibers, but this backs up what NYV6Coupe said. I too have my water heater set at 120-125 degrees. In my opinion this is not hot enough to damage anything.

 

[imported_The Uncle]

Making microfiber soup?

 

[sgo]

I have used both Micro-Restore and Sonus Der Wunder Wasche and they are both very good. I switched to Charlie's Soap because it was touted as being very good and cost a whole lot less.

When I got CS they recommended running the machine empty with CS to get out excess soap that may linger from having used detergents. I decided to use just vinegar as it was cheaper yet. I was amazed at the amount of suds I saw in the first run. Three loads did it for me.



Since I have been using CS on ALL of our laundry I've quit using vinegar as there is no rinsing problem and no soap residue left in the towels or clothes.



We have the new HE front loader and in the instructions that came with it said the reason you do NOT WANT SUDS is that the washing action takes place from the clothes falling and banging into one another. And that suds would only cushion that action reducing the cleaning action.

 

[imported_The Uncle]

Steve - What do you think of Charlie's Soap versus Micro-Restore? It is certainly a lot more economical.

 

[sgo]

Steve - What do you think of Charlie's Soap versus Micro-Restore? It is certainly a lot more economical.

That's probably hard to nail down without some sort of scientific test.



I use them differently so that makes it hard to directly compare. When I used Micro-Restore and Sonus Der Wunder Wasche, I used them in a two-gallon bucket and washed them by hand. I did that because they were expensive and I wasn't comfortable using them in my expensive new washer. The other use for them was for cleaning my foam PC pads. They work very good for that too. This past weekend I tried Charlie's APC for cleaning a foam pad after PB SSR1. At first I was disappointed because it didn't get all the pink out of the pad. After washing the pad in at least 5 more APC's it became clear that NOTHING was going to take the pink out of the pad.



Suffice to say that CS works well enough for me that I will continue to use it. It really makes the towels feel soft and fluffy.



It's not that expensive to try out. $22.?? for a gallon with free shipping. I use one (1) oz per load.