It’s a common question. Can I wash my delicates with regular detergent?
The short answer is no. The long answer is still, not really.
There are two ‘active’ ingredients in most laundry detergents.
Surfactants - the soap component. They are responsible for lifting the grime from your clothes by bonding with oil and water.
Enzymes - which target and breakdown protein, the culprit behind many stains.
Enzymes - which target and breakdown protein, the culprit behind many stains.
Wool and silk are both made from animal fiber, a protein. Unfortunately, our enzymes do not discriminate, which means that once they’ve finished removing your red wine stain, they might turn their attention to your wool jumper.
Often fabrics contain wool or silk in very small quantities, i.e 20% wool, or 10% silk. In this case, the structure of your clothes is coming from whatever else the fabric is made from. If you’ve washed said item in regular detergent before, and it’s been fine - it stands to reason that you’ll have no problem with Dirt.
If you’re not sure however, we advise you stick to a wool and delicates detergent. These contain surfactants, but not enzymes meaning the quality of the clean is diminished, but the overall result will be, 100% you can wear that again.
If you want to understand more about this, watch this Scishow video. It breaks down the story behind wool shrinkages with moving images and audio. How fancy.