How To Care for Your Lingerie

The very word ‘lingerie’ often provokes a coy smile on a woman’s face. It can be incredibly expensive and wondrously luxurious and every girl knows that sexy lingerie is an essential part of the mating process. Imagine what you would look like if you chose to wear an ill fitting bra or a thong that cut into your skin! Even worse, imagine if that delicate, gorgeous (expensive) stuff you bought for yourself or your man gifted to you is ruined after one wash. Wouldn’t you be moved to tears!

We all know that lingerie is made of delicate material. Compare for example a nice lacy camisole with your rough and tough jeans. You can’t possibly think that they can endure the same rigors in your washing machine. Just try doing it and you will soon find how well lace and silk stands up to the boil wash! Trust me when I say you will be rooting around, digging out the spares pants if you try to wash them together. Loose straps and out of shape cups, pulls and plucks; none of it makes you look sexy.

All the lingerie that you buy will come with a tag explaining how to maintain it. Keep that tag! Don’t rip it off to look sexy otherwise you will end up looking just the opposite because of bad washing. You can often cleverly conceal the tags while wearing your favourite slinky undies. If you can’t however, carefully cut it out and keep it safe.

Dry cleaning is no doubt a good option but just imagine taking you dreamy lacy or maybe racy teddy which your guy bought you as a special present to the cleaners. It could be embarrassing!

Thinking of doing it yourself? It’s easy to just toss your garter set into the washing machine after you’ve had a little play, however don’t cry if you later find the lace in shreds. In case you HAVE to wash in a machine then the least you can do is put them separately in a mesh bag and then toss it in the machine. But don’t be lazy and dump them all together, you must put only one in each bag and don’t forget to fasten the hooks and close the zippers and tie the draw strings. Otherwise they will all become tangled with each other and knots in lace stockings rarely come out without a fight.

The best you can do when washing yourself is use cold water and soft detergent for your lingerie which has lace trimmings, hooks, ribbons and eyes. You should wash different coloured materials separately. There are special detergents available for washing lingerie which are normally labeled “for delicates.” You should use them to care for your expensive stuff.

Even if you are not fanatical about washing you should at least fill a bowl with warm water and soak your little bits of lingerie in soft detergent for 30 minutes. Throw away the water and refill the bowl, again leave it for 30 minutes. It’s as simple as that. Never wring it out or it will lose its shape. Dry it flat and avoid tumble dryers for drying.

Different material lingerie is washed in different ways. Satin baby doll, silk chemise and chiffon which are extra delicate will be ruined if you use dryers on it. For acrylic and cotton lingerie you may either hand wash or dry clean it. Both are acceptable. You may even toss it in the washing machine at times. They are sturdy. You may wash nylon in the machine but dry it at low heat only.

If you follow these instructions then your favourite lingerie which you or your someone special bought you will stay in good shape for a long time to come and will bring back all the fond memories attached with it.