The laundry lover’s guide to non-nappy laundry

For Clean Cloth Nappies fans, the Cottons cycle is our bread and butter—it provides the long, high-agitation clean that heavy soiling demands. That doesn’t mean it is the best cycle for every occasion.

Learning to love your washing machine manual

A true laundry lover understands that sometimes you need to match the cycle and the spin speed to a specific item’s needs, not just blast everything on “Cottons.”

Within the admin team, the settings dial on our machines are very well used. It’s not because we have innate knowledge of our washing machines; it’s because we’ve spent a little time reading the manual.

Let’s embrace the cringecore and discuss washing machine manuals. We know this is about as exciting as watching paint dry. But for anyone serious about laundry—especially if you want your more delicate clothes to last—that manual is an essential resource.

Your manual gives you overviews of each cycle, alongside weight limits, temperature ranges and maximum spin speeds. Combine this with your Clean Cloth Nappies wisdom, and you get a deeper understanding of how to launder every item you own.

Take a few minutes, grab a coffee, and understand the DNA of your machine. It’s the simplest, most effective step you can take to achieve laundry perfection and make your clothes last longer. There might be some options in there that will change your laundry life. 

Venturing beyond Cottons

First and foremost, you don’t need the heavy-duty power of Cottons for everything. And Delicate cycles are too gentle to clean most items. There’s a breadth of cycles in between. 

For lightly worn summer dresses, blouses, or blazers, look for cycles with names like Shirts, Easy Care, or Easy Iron. These cycles pair lower agitation with a lower spin speed to prevent unnecessary stress on the fabric during the wash component and minimise creases during the spin phase.

For machine-washable wool, the wool cycle on some machines is too gentle to clean the mess out of toddler clothes. Look for a Sports or Gym Wear cycle. 

I use my Sports cycle for wool as it’s 1h 30 mins, low agitation and 30ºC. Gentle enough for wool but better at cleaning than the standard wool cycle.

For hand knits, it’s best to stick to hand washing or Wool/ Delicates; these do not often tolerate other cycles. 

Quick cycles

Even the Super Quick 15-minute cycles have a place in your laundry rolodex. These cycles tend to be rated for only 1-3kg of laundry, limit the temp to 30ºC or less and a maximum spin of 1000rpm. These cycles are perfect for freshening up lightly worn items, but they really excel when it comes to washing swimwear. 

The high elastane content of swimmers does not fare well in robust cycles, and when they’ve been worn in chlorine, they’re generally reasonably clean before going into the wash.

Adjusting the spin speed

Higher spin speeds remove more water, which saves energy and time drying. This is the best choice for nappy washes, but it isn’t always the right choice for non-nappy laundry. Many gentle cycles like those mentioned above automatically limit the spin speed to prevent creases. 

On other cycles, you can manually change the spin speed (revolutions per minute/rpm) before or during the wash. Knowing when to adjust them leads to better outcomes for your machine and your laundry.

There is a big reason to lower the spin speed: preventing unbalanced loads. Ever heard your washing machine vibrating so hard during the spin cycle it was going to take off? Or noticed the machine adding extra minutes, and the cycle never seems to end? 

This often happens with heavy or bulky items that are waterlogged from the wash cycle. The machine becomes unbalanced and has difficulty spinning out water at a high velocity.

In this situation, lowering the spin speed prevents an unbalanced load, protecting your machine from stopping and starting, or forgoing the spin cycle altogether.

Dry laundry is the goal, and many of these bulky items don’t matter if they are creased. After the program finishes, run a standalone spin cycle finishes a higher RPM to remove excess moisture.

My washer has a Bulky cycle that we use for towels and bedding (washed separately). I usually use it with a lower spin speed because of how heavy those items are when wet.

Wrapping it up

Stop fighting the machine and start leveraging the genius built into it. We might customise cycles for our specific needs, but the core programs—the time, the temperature, the mechanical action—are a carefully calibrated science. 

By moving away from the Cottons cycle for your non-nappy laundry, you ensure that your officewear, summer dresses and bulky items get the appropriate care, maintaining their shape, colour, and lifespan.