We’ve all been there: opening up the washing machine expecting to pull out a pile of perfectly laundered clothing only to find shreds of white tissue paper falling down like snowflakes. While accidentally putting a tissue through the wash is definitely annoying, removing washed tissue from clothing is surprisingly easy.
Here are three ways to remove tissues from your washing, and no, you won’t have to resort to individually picking off shreds of tissue, or rolling each item down with a lint roller.
1. Put the washing, tissues and all, into the dryer
The easiest way to remove tissues from your clothing is by placing the load of washing directly into the dryer. Clothes dryers are fitted with a lint filter which will do the hard work for you by catching all of the tissue fragments until you’re left with a pile of clean, dry and most importantly, tissue-free clothing.
Don’t forget to clean the dryer filter once the clothing is dry.
2. Use aspirin to dissolve the tissue
If you don’t have a dryer, you can try dissolving the tissue paper in an aspirin solution instead. Remove the clothing from the washing machine, and gently shake off as much of the tissue paper as possible. Then, dissolve four aspirin tablets in warm water and soak the clothing for approximately two hours.
Follow this with a quick rinse in the washing machine before hanging the clothing on the line to dry. Once dry you’ll find that the tissue specks have disappeared.
3. Fabric softener
Another method that doesn’t require a lint roller, this washing hack went viral in 2020 when it was shared on Twitter by a Japanese user named Yukino (@54123).
Translated, she says “I was so impressed when I learned that laundry that has suffered the tragedy of being covered in tissues can become clean if you wash it again using only fabric softener, one rinse, and one spin.”
The reason this works is that the fabric softener can break the bond between the tissue and clothing.
Yukino also said vinegar or citric acid could work, if you’d prefer to try that instead of fabric softener.
What else to keep in mind
When you find tissue all over your clean clothes in the washing machine, it’s important to also remove any papery bits from the washing drum and filter.
And if you don’t want to try any of the methods above, you can also go for the classic option of shaking out the clothes, letting them dry then using a lint roller or sticky tape to remove bits of tissue. It takes time, but it’s also basically a laundry rite of passage.
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