Hand washing Microfiber Towel (live in apartment with no machine)

[rfcoolz]

Hello, I am new to this forum but have already browse many2 things right here. I haven't found any hand washing tips microfibers and would love to get inputs from you guys, the expert! I tried to machine wash my microfibers several times already with only tide free and griot's microfiber wash with a very great result. Microfiber feels very plush and looks clean as new. EVERY TIME I tried to hand wash my microfibers with very little amount(only around 1 teaspoon) of Tide Free and Griot's wash, my towels always felt very harsh with brittles, even I already spend 1 hour rinsing them. Can anybody give me tips on how to hand wash these microfibers?

I washed 3 towels everyday since I waterless wash my car daily. Using machine is not convenient since it's only 3 towels, I need to walk a few blocks, and it costs 2.75 each wash. Any inputs are highly appreciated. Thank you.

[The Guz]

Re: Hand washing Microfiber Towel (live in apartment with no machine)

You could always pick up more microfibers. Toss the dirty ones in a bag and when you have a large load you can take them to the laundromat.

[rfcoolz]

Re: Hand washing Microfiber Towel (live in apartment with no machine)

Well, that might work. But isn't it bad to leave microfibers for a few days in dirty condition?

[Selectchoice]

Re: Hand washing Microfiber Towel (live in apartment with no machine)

No, they'll be fine.

[The Guz]

Re: Hand washing Microfiber Towel (live in apartment with no machine)

Agreed. You will be fine. I sometimes go a couple weeks before I wash mine but then again I have quite a few microfibers.

[Eldorado2k]

Re: Hand washing Microfiber Towel (live in apartment with no machine)

I also don't really like the idea of letting my dirty rinseless towels just marinate with grit for long periods of time while waiting for a full load to accumulate. I've tried a couple of things to try and ease my OCD through this.

1st I tried the obvious which is rinse the gritty towels after use which knocks off alot [mostly all if you're washing with D114]
But that wastes just about the same ammount of water as 1 would use just washing the car the normL way so I kind of defeats the purpose..

2nd thing I tried was rinsing the towels after use and then tossing them into a bucket filled with 3 gallons of Fresh D114 @1:128. While this may sound like a good idea, I found the results to be quite the contrary. When it finally came time to pull all of the towels I let accumulate for a load in this solution [about 20 or so] The 1st thing I noticed was a funky smell had developed in the bucket. I made sure not to close it airtight the whole time but either ways, it was funky and no longer smelled like fresh D114 oughta smell.. I wringed them out and proceeded to go through my normL wash procedure with dedicated microfiber detergent. But once they came out of the dryer they were noticeably degraded in every way compared to my unsoaked batch. They lost softness, slightly faded, and worst of all, they still had a hint of that funky musty solution I allowed to mix up. Ehh.. Needless to say, I won't ever be trying that again. Lol.

What I do now is set up a fresh water bucket with a grit guard and rinse as much grit off the towels as I can after I'm done washing my car. Then I lightly wring out the towels and toss them into another [clean] bucket with a grit guard and loosely cover it until I accumulate a large enough batch to wash all at once. That method seems to turn out good results as it seems the microfiber detergent is able to clean much better when it's not forced to fight through a ton of straight dirt in the washload. Suds last throughout the entire wash cycle [instead of being used up within a couple minutes due to all the dirt] and all towels come out equally clean.

Is it a bit of a hassle to do this? Sometimes, yea. And you will need to have new rinse water for every batch of towels you decide to rinse out.
The shortcut method to this is simply doing a quik grit guard rinse in fresh water to all the visably dirty towels, to knock off any heavy dirt just prior to tossing them into the washer. I've seen a noticeable difference from that quik rinse. Enough to make me happy. Good luck!

[rfcoolz]

Re: Hand washing Microfiber Towel (live in apartment with no machine)

Well, water is not a concern to me since it is free in my apartment lol. I just use waterless because I live in an apartment with no place to do traditional wash, so rinseless and waterless are my only hope. Thank you very much for all of your responses. It ease me a little bit about leaving them for a few more days and wash them all at once. I guess I'm just too afraid to let them accumulate. I will try to just rinse them with water and leave until more towel accumulated.

[thedoc46]

Re: Hand washing Microfiber Towel (live in apartment with no machine)

I use two 5 gallon buckets... One called V.DIRTY MF's and the other called LIGHT DIRT ONLY.

If they're damp, i'll leave them hanging out til they're dry and throw them in either bucket... So that I've accumliated enough for a proper wash using Towel Kleen.

Dirty ones get washed by hand, then left to soak in APC, then thrown in the machine. Whereas the lightly dirty ones (one's used on paint) just get thrown in the machine.

I keep good paint MF's in their own 5 gallon storage bucket and the el cheapo MF's in a separate 5 gallon bucket... They get used on the door jamps, wheel wells, wheels, engine bays... Basically anywhere but paint and they get filthy. BUT do get far more attention at the time of cleaning. Like hand washed twice then machine washed.