When it becomes necessary to hoist several items of clothing, books or even a camping tent on yourself, you can forget about uncomfortable bags and packages. In this case, a backpack will come to the rescue - almost everyone, young and old, has this irreplaceable thing. The younger generation uses a schoolbag, loading it with books and notebooks, athletes choose a compact backpack for changing shoes and clothes, and tourists cannot do without a large shoulder bag for traveling. Such a popular household item quickly becomes dirty. How to wash a backpack in a washing machine and can it be done?
What items cannot be machine washed?
Logically, any fabric satchel can be loaded into the washer. However, everything is not so simple. Before washing a backpack, it is recommended to pay attention to some factors:
- in the design of the school bag, as a rule, a solid insert is provided. It is sheathed with fabric and it is not always possible to get it. If it is made of plastic, then you should not worry - you can safely wash the backpack. If it is a piece of plywood or chipboard, then after washing the insert will get wet, the satchel will lose its shape.
- The quality of the fittings also plays an important role.Often, buttons, locks and other parts rust, and this rust spreads to the fabric, so you can wash the backpack in a typewriter only if the accessories are made of stainless steel.
- fabric impregnated with a special water-repellent composition will gradually lose its properties after several washes. Such products can be cleaned with dry compounds or foam, but cannot be soaked and washed.
- any satchel should not be boiled or washed in hot water. No matter how dense and durable the fabric is, such manipulations can adversely affect its quality and spoil the shape of the product.
There is such a poor-quality oxford (backpack fabric) that a shoulder bag sewn from it begins to fall apart after washing, threads come out of it endlessly and gradually the product completely crumbles.
How to wash a backpack in a washing machine
A product made of dense fabric, without impregnation and with high-quality fittings, can be subjected to automatic washing. Wash the backpack in the washing machine as follows:
- It never hurts to check the information on the label - to make sure that there is no prohibition on machine washing, because the manufacturer will not just warn about it.
- To wash a school backpack, you need to fasten all the zippers - this is a guarantee that they will continue to work properly after washing. Buttons and Velcro, on the contrary, should be unfastened so that water does not stagnate in the fasteners.
- A stain remover can be poured onto greasy stains and stubborn stains, but the product used should not contain chlorine and acetone - these substances can corrode textiles and spoil its color.
- Next, the satchel is soaked in warm soapy water with the addition of soda.Soaking time is approximately 1-1.5 hours. Then the backpack must be allowed to drain a little, and then placed in the drum of the washing machine.
- If the product is soft and can be turned inside out, this is only a plus. Usually this is not possible, so it is better to place the backpack in a special laundry bag or just in an old cotton pillowcase.
- It is better to wash the briefcase in the washing machine not on synthetics, but on wool or delicate mode. A temperature of 30 degrees is an ideal parameter for such a product.
- You can wash the satchel with both dry and liquid powder.The only difference is that particles of a dry product can leave stains on the product if you do not rinse it well. Universal gels with enzymes, on the contrary, always rinse well and effectively remove the most severe dirt. If a dry powder is used, then it makes sense to add a little conditioner to the tank.
- At the end of the cycle, the backpack should be immediately removed from the washing machine. All compartments must be opened, the linings turned out and all locks and pockets unbuttoned. If this is not done, the satchel may suffocate and gain an unpleasant musty smell. After it is completely open and straightened, all that remains is to hang the backpack in the fresh air and wait for it to dry completely.
After a delicate wash, the thing is not always washed completely. If there are stains on the backpack, you can soak it in a stain remover for a couple of hours, and only then wash it again.
As for sports backpacks, experts recommend placing small bags of talcum powder or special sticks on the bottom or under the lining that are put into shoes so that they do not pick up an unpleasant smell. Thus, throwing things into the satchel after a workout, you don’t have to worry that it will soon smell unpleasant and will have to be washed.
Can you wash your hiking backpack?
Travel backpacks get dirty faster than school and sports ones. This is due to the fact that nature lovers often leave the thing just on the ground or in the grass in the open air. Therefore, such shoulder bags are necessarily impregnated with a special compound to ensure the waterproofness of the product. You can only wash a hiking backpack by hand, and here's why:
- all household chemicals adversely affect the water-repellent properties of the backpack. Whether it is a gentle liquid gel or an aggressive phosphate powder, these substances destroy the special impregnation;
- durable oxford cannot be rinsed well after washing, so powder particles settle in fabric fibers and gradually destroy their structure. In addition, it can have a bad effect on sensitive skin, for example, provoke an allergic rash;
- during machine washing, the product stays in water for a long time and is constantly subjected to mechanical stress, so even if you wash the item without powder, the impregnation will quickly wash out;
- a tourist backpack is too bulky with many options and compartments, so it may not fit in a typewriter, but it cannot be heavily crushed;
- machine washing degrades the quality of the product as a whole. The point is not only water resistance - the seams of the product are stretched and over time it breaks in these problem areas.
In fact, cleaning a backpack that is not machine washable can be done by hand, and it's not difficult at all.Pour a little water into the bathroom, then grate half a bar of laundry soap and dissolve it there. The backpack is immersed in water and cleaned with a stiff brush, paying special attention to problematic and contaminated areas. You need to work with the product quickly and actively, since it should not be left in water for more than 20 minutes.
It is not recommended to wash the backpack too often, especially in a washing machine. However, it is also impossible to clean a thing too rarely, as it is brought beyond recognition, and it is very difficult to remove old stains. There is only one way out - to carefully use your satchel and wipe the dirt with a damp cloth while they are still fresh.
