Microfiber Restorer
- Thread starter LQ9SS
- Start date
BlueZero
New member
Vintage said:
Vinegar works great. I can really tell the difference.
According to Leo "Placing about a tablespoon per towel of distilled white vinegar in the final rinse will help the fibers shed excess detergent."
BlueZero said:
Thanks! I was wondering if it’s a softener when you have hard water, gets them cleaner, etc. I washed about 50 last night and used vinegar in the “bleach� cycle so that it rinsed with fresh clean water. Is this best? Or should I put the vinegar in the “softener� cycle so that vinegar is the final rinse instead of fresh water?
Accumulator
Well-known member
Vintage said:
The idea is that the vinegar is slightly acidic. As I understand it, that will a) help get the detergent residue out, b) neutralize some of the water's presumed alkalinity.
IIRC you shouldn't use it in the regular wash cycle as it will compromise the effectiveness of your detergent. I'll sometimes put it in a separate/additional wash cycle (after the regular wash/rinse) that I'm using as a "super rinse". Sometimes it can be surprising how much detergent is still left after a regular wash, even if you do the 2nd rinse option.
But, again AFAIK/IIRC, it should always go in the final rinse even if you did the previously mentioned thing in the wash cycle.
BlackElantraGT
New member
I do what Accumulator does. I don't have a machine that dispenses softener during the rinse cycle, and I find that the Downy softener ball doesn't release completely, so instead of timing it correctly and putting the vinegar in the rinse cycle, after the first wash, I put the towels through another regular wash, except this time using vinegar instead of detergent.
Yesterday I was just reading about using vinegar in one of my wife's Woman's Day magazine (the kind you see at the grocery checkout lines). The article was about the art of line drying clothes and the writer mentioned using vinegar also from time to time because of detergent residue not fully coming out, which causes clothes to lose their softness.
Yesterday I was just reading about using vinegar in one of my wife's Woman's Day magazine (the kind you see at the grocery checkout lines). The article was about the art of line drying clothes and the writer mentioned using vinegar also from time to time because of detergent residue not fully coming out, which causes clothes to lose their softness.
KaiYenS said:
i use liquid tide with no problems, no need to buy MR. i wash with liquid tide (little goes a long way) in warm water and on the last rinse cycle i add 4-5oz's of vinegar, and then into the dryer on the lowest heat setting (no fabric softnener). haven't had any problems all these years...
Accumulator
Well-known member
KaiYenS said:
Yeah, distilled white vinegar.
Put it in the softener dispenser (but pull the dispenser drawer out and clean out the residue from any fabric softener, it builds up in there). There's a limit to how much you can put in there, but remember that these washers don't use all that much water so IMO it works out OK.
On our Whirlpool Duet frontloader, the stuff in the fabric softener dispenser is supposedly only dispensed during the last rinse. If you don't trust that, just run an extra rinse cycle. I've sometimes done an extra wash/rinse with the vinegar in both the detergent dispenser (to help remove detergent residue in the towels) and the softener dispenser. In fact, I'm running that combo as we speak, with a load of WWMFs.
If your Whirlpool has a "sanitary" cycle with *hot* water, try this: after a regular wash/rinse cycle, run it on "sanitize" with no detergent. Look in the door/window while it's running (during the "wash" part of the cycle) and see if you're getting any sudsing from detergent residue; wouldn't surprise me if you were
Accumulator
Well-known member
KaiYenS said:
IMO if you don't have any complaints with the Tide then you can just stick with it. OTOH, if you try the MF restorer you'll know first-hand whether it provides you with any benefits. I didn't realize how much better it could be until I tried it, but that's just me and my (questionable at best) water.
Bert31 said:
Sounds to me like you're just using a bit too much vinegar. I've had that happen with mine too, and I've never had any problems from using the towels. I dunno if the additional (vinegar-less) rinse will undo the vinegar rinse, but I sorta suspect it might; one of the reasons I'm using it is to help counteract my slightly hard water, so I wouldn't want to rerinse with said water.