If you have cashmere or wool sweaters that you want to stay nice, the best way to wash them is to hand-wash them. It’s easy to hand wash a sweater, but it can be a little time consuming. It’s worth investing the time to make sure your high-end clothing stays looking great. Hand washing can prolong the life of your sweaters and delicate clothes. Wool items, especially cashmere, respond very well to hand-washing. Here are some tips to hand wash a sweater successfully:

Use cold water: You can soak the sweater in warm water if you want to soak a stain, but when it comes to actually washing the sweater, use cold or slightly warm water. Never use hot water on a wool item. Wool can felt or shrink when it agitates in hot water. The best place to hand wash a sweater is in the bathroom sink or in the bath tub because both of those places are usually cleaner than the kitchen sink.

Use a gentle detergent: You need to use a very gentle detergent to wash wool items and delicate fabrics. A natural detergent that contains no fragrances or chemicals like Rockin' Green is the perfect detergent to use to hand wash delicate items. Put the stopping in the sink and turn on the water. Pour in a few drops of detergent and swish it with your hands to dissolve it into the water. Then submerge the item in the water.

Rinse the sweater in cold water: After you get the sweater fully wet and make sure that the soapy water goes all the way through it, you need to rinse the sweater in cold water. Pull the stopper and let all the soapy water drain out. Put the stopper in the sink again and fill it with cold water. Gently swish the sweater in the cold water to rinse all the soap. If you need to, repeat this process a few times. It’s essential that you get all the soap out of the sweater.

Pat, don’t wring the sweater to dry it: When you need to remove the excess water from the sweater roll it up in a towel and pat the water out. Never wring the sweater out to remove water. The fabric will be very delicate when it is wet and if you wring it out you could ruin it. Pat the water out and then hang the sweater on a drying rack or on a clothes line to dry.