When washing and caring for your clothes, it's important to think about what they are made of and how they should be washed and dried. Doing so will ensure that your clothes have a long lifespan and that they keep their shape, color and quality.

How to read the washing symbols

It's super annoying to realize that a jacket should have been dry cleaned after it's been in the washing machine! That's why we've put together a little guide to what the washing symbols you'll find inside Ecouture clothes (and many other clothes) mean. In addition to this guide, you can always find specific advice for washing and caring for each Ecouture design under its product page on the webshop.

The one with the degrees

Well, it kind of goes without saying. It indicates how high you CAN wash your clothes at. At Ecouture, however, we always recommend that you wash most clothes at 30°C or 20°C. This protects both your clothes and the environment.

The one with the hand

The symbol indicates whether you should wash the garment by hand. And you should take this seriously if you want to take good care of the color, print and different materials of your clothes. If you don't follow these instructions, a trip to the washing machine can sometimes cause discoloration, and you want to avoid that at all costs!

The one with the square, circle and cross over

If this symbol is chopped off, it means that under no circumstances should you put the garment in a dryer. Unless you're going to turn it into doll clothes!

The one with the iron

An iron with two dots in it indicates that you can iron clothes with an iron that is up to 150°C hot.

The one with the P

A circle with a letter in it always means that the clothes need to be dry cleaned. The letter is a note to the dry cleaner about which liquid they should use. A line underneath means they need extra gentle cleaning. You can always remind them of this when you bring in the clothes.

Caring for prints and vash instructions for delicate materials

Print

Ecouture's eco-friendly print withstands heat. It's a good idea to iron the print before and after washing. This will fix the print and keep it looking good for many years.

Wool

Wool garments should be washed at a maximum of 30°C and should only be washed by hand or on a wool program. It's important to use wool detergent so that the wool doesn't stutter. Wool tends to give a little when you wear it for a while, but contracts again when washed. When the material is wet, you can shape the fabric very much into the shape you want it to be.

You can also choose to simply air your wool garments for a few hours and the smell will be gone. In many cases, airing wool clothes is just as good as washing them. You'll wear your clothes even less and extend their lifespan!

A little bonus tip: To protect wool products from moth infestation during the summer months or when not in use for a period of time, the products should be washed at the end of the season, then dried well and finally stored in a dark place, preferably in a tight plastic bag and preferably with a lavender bag inside.

Silk

If you want to take good care of clothes made of silk or with silk in them, wash them gently at 30° degrees by hand with a silk detergent.

7 laundry tips: keep your clothes clean with a cleaner conscience

Danes alone consume 89,000 tons of clothing per year. That's equivalent to each Dane buying 16 kilos of clothing every year. And the environmental impact of clothing is not just in the production process. Around 40% of a garment's environmental impact takes place after it has left the store. In other words, in your home! That's why we've put together 7 laundry tips that will help you significantly reduce your clothes' environmental footprint and extend their lifespan.

1. Wash less!

We all know this everyday scene: clothes lying around on the floor. Clothes are picked up from the floor. Clothes are thrown in the laundry basket - but whoops! Did those clothes end up in the right place? Most likely not. The golden rule of thumb is that if you're not sure if the clothes are dirty, do NOT wash them!

Many of us have the bad habit of throwing clothes in the wash that are neither dirty nor smelly. The vast majority of clothes can be worn many times before they actually need to be washed. Clothes like skirts and pants can even be worn many times before they start to smell or get too many stubborn stains. And hey, less laundry! - It's a win-win situation.

2. Air your clothes

A good alternative to washing clothes is to air them instead. Usually a few hours outside for airing can remove the odor from the clothes. If your clothes are made of wool, you can avoid washing them altogether and just air them if you've avoided getting them too dirty. Conveniently, cold and frost are the best deodorizers for wool clothes.

3. Use arm pads

Our foremothers sewed sleeves into their shirts and dresses so they could wash the sleeves separately from the garment. This way they were able to wash less and keep their clothes looking good for longer. It's a great idea and a tradition that we at Ecouture think is worth bringing back. That's why you can buy white and black sleeves (with matching snaps) on our webshop - order them here.

4. Remove the stains yourself

It goes without saying that it's not necessary. Still, many people send their clothes to the dry cleaner just because they have a stain or two on them. However, the vast majority of stains can actually be dealt with by a "spot wash" with a little water. Dry cleaning is hard on both your clothes and the environment, so send your clothes to the dry cleaners as rarely as possible.

However, stains can be hard to get out. If you get stains on your clothes, be careful not to rub too thoroughly on the same spot. This can sometimes lead to some excess color being removed, resulting in a lighter area on the garment (Ecouture doesn't use harsh chemicals to fix the color, so you will often see excess color).

When removing a stain, the entire surrounding area must be wetted to avoid new scabs. In the process, gently rub a good amount of hand soap or brown soap into the soiled area. Soak the wet fabric overnight in a plastic bag to prevent it from drying. NB: However, it's best if the fabric is fairly evenly colored so that the colors don't rub off on each other. Otherwise, you need to be sure that it won't rub off anymore. The next day, most of the stains are gone and the fabric can be rinsed clean of soap again.

5. Wash at 30°C and preferably 20°C

A regular wash of dresses, T-shirts, blouses, pants and clothes you would normally wash at 30-40°C can easily be washed at 20 degrees! However, this requires that you wash by hand or have a machine that can wash at 20°C and that you wash it with cold water washing powder, which has special enzymes added to it. You can find cold water detergent in most supermarkets. Irma, for example, has a cold water detergent that carries the Nordic Ecolabel.

If the clothes are very dirty, 30°C can usually do the job. 40°C is a no-go for regular laundry.

If you want to take care of your Ecouture dresses, hand wash them gently at 20° - 30° and don't soak them as it can cause discoloration if it has multiple colors. Let the garment drip dry. If you don't twist it so that it's very wet when you hang it up - straighten it a little. And hanging clothes outside, the wind can sometimes help to "iron" them. However, if you wash in the machine - with a spin cycle - what we call "ironing penalty" occurs because clothes get very wrinkled in the spin cycle.

6. Use eco-friendly detergent and dose correctly

There is a wide range of environmentally friendly detergents on the market. If your local supermarket doesn't stock it, there are a number of online stores that can send it to you. For example, try EcoEgo.dk

And while we're on the subject of detergent, we're also said to be a little sloppy when loading detergent into the machine. Overdosing detergent leaves soap residue in the clothes and is simply a waste of money and an unnecessary nuisance to the environment. There are dosage instructions on all detergents, so all you need to do is read the instructions and check the water hardness where you live. You can find a hardness map of Denmark here. For those of you living in the City of Copenhagen, we can reveal that the water hardness is 18-24 dH = hard.

7. Ditch the dryer

We all know it, and we've known it for years. No, hanging socks and underwear to dry is no fun, but it only takes 5 minutes. So that machine just needs to go. Period.

Worth knowing: If you don't tumble at all, you can save $750 and 200 kg of CO2 in one year (source: Center for Responsible Design).