Do you find laundry labels confusing? You're not alone! According to new research, around 74% of us are baffled when it comes to the washing symbols on our clothing, but Smart Energy GB is warning it could be costing us money to wash our things incorrectly! To bust the myths, here's Susannah Constantine.
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00:00 It is actually quite staggering and I include myself in this that something like 74% of
00:10 us don't understand the labels on clothing, you know, the washing labels or even read
00:17 them and I am absolutely guilty of that and I was guilty right up until I got involved
00:23 with Smart Energy and there are so many, you know, I think most of us really only use two
00:35 settings on our washing machine so it is cold or hot, nothing in between. With the dryer,
00:44 we put too much in the dryer. Yeah and you say that you are guilty of this,
00:48 I know I am. My washing machine comes with a million different functions.
00:51 I mean what, how the hell are we supposed to know what those are and it actually really
00:57 annoys me because the bottom line is, is you know a cold wash is just as efficient as a
01:04 hot wash and you might not get stains out but let's say you have got kind of chocolate
01:09 ice cream down you which I do frequently, then you just use the whole old-fashioned
01:14 way of a pre-soak, you know, you get a bit of concentrated detergent, soak it for a little
01:18 bit and then put it on a cool wash and it comes out just as clean.
01:21 And it seems our washing woes are impacting our energy bills with 40% of the nation looking
01:26 for ways to be more energy efficient when doing their laundry. 60% of households say
01:31 their smart meters display has been integral to monitoring their energy use at home and
01:36 a further 41% say it's specifically helped them track their energy consumption when doing
01:41 laundry. And it's not just our pockets that will thank us for washing correctly. Susanna
01:46 says making small changes is better for both the planet and the longevity of our clothes.
01:51 If you don't hammer your laundry in high temperatures, your clothing is going to last a lot longer
01:59 and with fast fashion as it is now, you know, the fabrics they use cannot sustain, repeat
02:06 high heat washing. So what was this? I, for my podcast, I interviewed Nile Rogers and
02:17 I was so staggered that he hand washes himself everything from his suits to his shirts to
02:28 his underpants. And he sent me a video of himself hand washing a Karl Lagerfeld silk
02:34 suit. And it's the same principle. If you, you lose, you use a cold wash, your clothes
02:40 will last longer. His suits, you know, this was a 30 year old suit. I have to say, if
02:43 I put a 30 year old suit in, um, if I wash that, I wouldn't be able to get into it anyway.
02:50 Um, but yeah, so, you know, there's this clothes last longer. And so I think it's, you know,
02:57 it's, it's saving up money to buy something of higher quality and then looking after it
03:02 with your washing techniques.