How to wash your clothes Wise?
We provide you with the best practices for washing your Wise clothes.
This particularly concerns our products with water-repellent treatment.
Washing trail clothing and especially technical textiles such as membranes or fabrics with water-repellent treatment gives rise to many debates in the outdoor sports world. Between washing aficionados who put their clothes in the washing machine after each outing and runners who prefer Merino wool clothing because it doesn't retain odors from one day to the next, you have to admit that it's easy to get lost in it.
Faced with this observation, we decided to deliver the best practices for washing your Wise clothes. In any case, this is the one we practice.
All Wise products (Dawa Sherpa Series, Compact Series and Core Series products) are to be washed following this method. All our products with water-repellent treatment are also concerned: Blackshell, Nanoshell 160g, Legging Sherpa, Nanopant, Nanoshell 360g.
Why wash your clothes?
This question may seem trivial at first glance, but for technical clothing, washing is a real sustainability issue. Dust, dirt, salt from perspiration are all elements that attack your clothes.
Maintaining them then allows you to considerably increase their lifespan. And it's the same for shoes: with dirt, the mesh of the upper will tend to deteriorate more quickly due to abrasion. It is therefore advisable to wash your shoes as often as possible.
It is equally important to wash products with a waterproof-breathable membrane such as Blackshell or a water-repellent treatment such as Nanoshell. A common misconception is that machine washing will reduce the waterproofing and degrade the water-repellent treatment.
But on the contrary, it is important to wash them to keep all the technical properties. So yes, we wash a jacket with membrane or water-repellent treatment like the others ;)
When should you put your clothes in the washing machine?
To best maintain the products, we recommend alternating between rinsing/hand washing and machine washing. Indeed, it is not necessary to put your clothes in the washing machine after each outing. After a jog, a basic endurance outing without sweating too much, a simple rinse/wash in cold or lukewarm water (30°) will be enough to remove all odors. And since smelling good is essential, it is possible to add a small dab of liquid detergent.
Unlike more aggressive machine washing, hand rinsing will also limit the number of micro-particles of polymers that will end up in the water and then in our oceans!
We still recommend washing your clothes in the machine every 3/4 uses or after a long outing in the blazing sun!
And in practice, how do you wash your clothes in the machine? 4 steps.
Step 1: Prepare your clothes.
Empty all pockets without forgetting the packaging used during the last ultra. Close all zippers. Very important so that a free ZIP does not damage other clothes. Undo all knots (the knot of the belt cord of the Sherpa Race Shorts for example). Loosen all elastic cords (on the bottom of the Blackshell for example. Place the clothes in a Guppy Friend. A pillowcase also works very well.
Step 2: Which detergent should you choose?
To wash technical products, it is essential to use liquid detergent. Be careful not to use powder detergent. In fact, powder detergent blocks the ports of the Blackshell membrane, for example. The jacket will then lose all its properties.
breathable. Also be careful not to put perfume, bleach, fabric softener or dyes. Only liquid detergent.
Step 3: Program your machine
Once in the guppy friend, WISE clothes should be washed at 30°C with a one-hour cycle or a synthetic cycle. Set the spin to 800 rpm maximum.
Step 4: Drying the clothes
Dry clothes in the open air on a clothes horse. Do not tumble dry or iron.
Step 6 (optional): revive the water-repellent treatment
Concerns the Blackshell, the Sherpa Leggings, the Nanoshell.
After about ten uses in the rain, the water-repellent treatment will tend to disappear, the water drops will no longer bead on the surface of the fabric but will directly impregnate it. In reality, the water-repellent treatment does not really disappear, it just gets dirty. With a simple tumble dryer, it is very easy to revive the water-repellent treatment of your clothes. Once washed and dry, putting the clothes in the dryer for 10-15 minutes on a synthetic or wool program will be enough to restore the treatment.
This is the method we use. Simple and effective.
This method was recommended to us by our various partners (PAYEN / PETRATEX) and we also tested it on our prototypes.
If you are hesitant to take action or have any other questions, do not hesitate to write to our customer service, we will be happy to answer you.
To see all our advice in video, click here: