Permanent Press Cycles are Overrated

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People having permanent press

I think most humans are much like you, they have garments and sheets labeled "permanent press" but wash and dry them like any other garment without second thought and without resulting problems.

Personally I look at something and ask myself, does this need delicate or normal and sort it from there. Regular cottons and sheets hot water, warm for casual items and cold for delicate. A lot of 3button coin op washers seem to be set up that way.
 
Not so much in Europe I think, but it may be different on your side of the pond. I do know that man made fabrics were more popular on your side than here. However I do remember some brand of no iron shirts that looked much better being washed on a PP cycle than on a regular one. IIRC the brand was Bel-o-fast.
 
I use the Wash N Wear cycle on my 1963 RCA Whirlpool Imperial Mark XII from time to time to wash some synthetic gym shorts and always have good results. Even washed a table cloth that appeared to be a permanent press type of material and was wrinkle free after and washed and dried it as well.

Maytag in the 50’s up until 1965 didn’t offer a Wash N Wear cycle on their washers but did however offer it on their dryers and in a way were sort of ahead of the curve since they figured of you were going to wash permanent press items you’d probably would put them into the dryer to remove any wrinkles and figured it wasn’t worth the R&D at the time to develop a Wash N Wear cycle when one would just put Wash N Wear/Permanent Press items into the dryer to be dried.
 
The all push button May tag models in the early sixties and even maybe late fifties did have a wash and where cycle. It was the only model that feature.
 
Wash and wear and permanent press cycle’s on washers

Could make a very big difference and often gave excellent results.

The first nice washer our family had was a 1959 lady Kenmore that my brothers and I rebuilt in 1966.

I use the wash and wear cycle all the time on that for washing shirts and my mothers dresses.

I remember my aunt was over one time came down to the basement and she was absolutely amazed that I have ironed all these shirts from my brothers and father and dresses and I said they had not been ironed they’ve been washed in the Lady Kenmore and they have been dried in the dryer and they looked absolutely perfect hanging on the hangers.

The lady Kenmore used about 20 gallons of cold water to cool the fabrics off before a nice quick low speed spin.

The later whirlpool built top load washers where they agitated to mix the water off were an improvement and used less cold water.

These cycles were necessary because it’s necessary to wash any outer clothing in fairly hot water to get it clean, detergents have improved somewhat and you can get away with lower wash temperatures today and this reduces the need for the wash and wear cycles although it’s still smart not to spin things so fast until they cooled by a nice cold rinse.

Clothing should always be rinsed in as cold water as it’s available in any automatic washer, the cold water removes detergent better leaves of clothing less wrinkled reduces bacteria count in the clothing and in the machine to reduce the possibility of mold growth etc.

Every detergent maker in every washing machine maker recommends cold water rinsing for all loads.

John L

K
 

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