Clothes will ‘last longer and retain colour’ if washed using clever method used by experts

One simple trick will help protect your clothes from colour bleeding and pilling – and it doesn’t require buying any extra cleaning products. 

Turning your clothes inside out before putting them in the wash to be helps to protect colours from fading, experts have explained. 

“Washing clothes and turning them inside out will help protect the outer fabric from friction during washing, which is crucial for preserving their color and making clothes look new,” Forrest Webber, owner of Bear Brothers Cleaning, Real Simple. Webber added that it can also protect any prints and embroidery on your clothing. 

Over time, all fabrics will fade – even the more expensive ones – but by washing your clothes inside out, you can preserve colour by delaying the fading process. 

It is also a great way to get sweat out of workout clothing as the inside of your clothes is the area that comes into contact with sweat, deodorant, creams and body odour. 

However, there are some items of clothing you would not want to wash with this method. Tom Ceconi, president of Heritage Park Laundry Essentials said: “The drawback to laundering clothing inside out is simple: less effective stain removal. For this reason, we recommend washing stained items right-side out and, of course, pre-treating them.” 

This would include items with lots of dirt on the outside – like baby clothes, clothes worn during gardening, or anything particularly muddy. 

Another positive to washing your clothes inside out is that it reduces the likelihood of detergent stains, which occur when detergent doesn’t properly dissolve during the wash cycle. 

“When you wash your clothes inside out, you prevent the risk of a detergent stain landing on the outer layer of your items and affecting their overall appearance,” Whirlpool, the washing machine manufacturer, . 

It can also reduce pilling as many washing machines rely on friction to remove soils and stains – which, of course, makes fabric pilling worse. By turning items of clothing inside out, it can help to protect against that agitation, Whirlpool explains. 

“Laundry services, dry cleaners, and other laundry professionals wash your laundry inside out,” experts 2ULaundry . “If the pros are doing it, you should probably consider it too.”

This means that if any bleeding or damage does happen to your clothing, it will be on the inside of the garment, “which no one will ever see”.