Care Guides

General Garment Care tips and guidelines

Head down to explore the principles of garment care and find specific material care guides for our most common materials in the menu above. Spoiler alert: Apart from keeping your garment in better condition longer by preserving color and fabric strength, proper garment care saves on energy costs and pollution.

WEAR MORE, WASH LESS

Washing your clothes after each use is often more about habit than hygiene, and quite frankly mostly it isn’t necessary. In fact, washing less slows down the fading of color and ageing of your garment in general. Many garments just need to be aired and shaken out properly to be good for another wear. And many stains can be spot treated. It’s not unhygienic, it’s responsible takes the load off both the laundry basket and your wallet.

GO FOR LOWER TEMPERATURES

Thanks to modern day washing machines and detergents you no longer need to boil your laundry. A lower temperature still gets the job done, while putting less stress on your clothing and the environment. We’re not saying everything should be washed at 30C (cold), leave your underwear and bedsheets for instance, but most of it.

SKIP THE DRYER

Skipping the dryer is probably the most significant choice both in terms of doing the environment a favour and keeping your garments in good shape. Air drying is always the better option. But do make sure to dry your laundry immediately and don’t leave wet clothes in the machine since it will wrinkle and may eventually cause mold and mildew.

WASH PROPERLY

Follow the care label symbols and instructions carefully, they’ve been designed to keep your clothes in great shape while not pressuring the environment too heavily.

FILL YOUR WASHING MACHINE

Needless to say putting a single t-shirt through a full program of multiple cycles is a waste of both water and energy. So unless it is an emergency, wait until you have enough to fill a full machine. But don’t wait too long, as you don’t want to overfill your machine. Heavy loads cause friction which wears clothes out faster and may also result in the garments being poorly washed.

USE GREEN PRODUCTS

Choose an environmentally friendly laundry detergent and don’t use too much of it. Overdosing won’t have any effect on making your clothes cleaner. Softeners are popular and can be anti-static to reduce the collection of lint on dark garments, but be aware that chemical softeners may damage both the garment and environment. If needed, use organic softeners. Substances to look out for: optical brighteners, chlorine, synthetic perfumes and colours, parabens, phosphates, petrochemicals and sulphates.

SORT AND OPTIMIZE

Different garments have different requirements and your laundry should be sorted accordingly. At least, you need to sort by color but we recommend you also sort them by type (workwear vs more delicate garments) or temperature (warm vs cold). A good tip is to make sure that the garments doesn’t hurt each other in the machine, empty pockets, close zippers and make sure to not wash colored new garments for the first time together with lighter colours.

TREAT STAINS IMMEDIATELY

If you get a stain on your garment, spot treat it immediately. Natural materials such as cotton, linen and wool generally absorb a lot which means that the longer you wait , the harder it gets to eliminate the stain. Unfortunately, there’s no universal treatment so make sure to read up on the best way to treat your particular stain and garment. Check out our Stain Guides for some tried and tested recommendations for some of the most common and tricky stains you may encounter.

AVOID DRY CLEANING

We don't recommend dry-cleaning any of our garments, except our outerwear that should be dry-cleaned only due to the different insulation materials in the lining of the coats. The coats are preferably aired and any stains can be spot treated at home. By doing this you don’t have to wash the whole garment just for one little stain, which saves both energy and the material. But depending on your usage, the time might come for a dry clean. Traditional dry-cleaning is unfortunately not that sustainable, and most dry-cleaners use the chemical Perc, which causes health issues and contributes to air pollution. Therefore when going to a dry-cleaner, be sure to ask if they use Perc, hydrocarbons or D-5 cleaners and ask them to use other methods available for the dry-cleaning or, even better, opt for green or ecological dry-cleaners that use CO2 or water as the primary solvent. If possible, bring a reusable dry cleaning bag or ask your cleaner to simply skip the plastic. Also remember to bring back your hangers to the dry cleaner to recycle.

STEAMING & IRONING

Depending on the fabric construction, some fabrics can be more or less prone to creasing and wrinkles. If needed, we recommend steaming over ironing, as it's gentler to the fabric fibers. Most garments don't need ironing if you wash on lower cycle and gently shake or stretch them when they come out of the washing machine and hang the garment to dry. If there is a setting on the washing machine called ‘reduced creases’, it will also help to prevent wrinkles, alternatively you can always reduce the wash cycle (the garments will come out more wet). If the garments do need ironing, then it is best to refer to the garment care label to know what temperature setting is safe. When ironing cotton and linen items, we recommend to use a damp function or use the steam setting on the iron. Giving the cotton or linen a little moisture before ironing will make the fibres smoother and the garment will flatten quicker.

REDUCE MICROPLASTICS

Microplastics are small pieces of plastic, less than 5 millimeter in length. They are not a specific type of plastic and occur in our environment as a part of plastic pollution. Microplastics enter natural ecosystems, both aquatic and land ecosystems, from different sources including cosmetics, garments and accessories, and industrial processes. Microplastics can also enter our bodies through for example food and water. Many synthetic fabric fibers, such as polyester, nylon, elastane and acrylics, are shed from clothing in the wash and then flushed out in our water supply. Current sewage plants don't eliminate all the microplastics from our water supply and therefore the plastics will enter the aquatic ecosystem. The majority of ASKET garments are made of 100% natural fibers such as cotton and wool. We use polyester thread in the care labels, main labels and the seams of the garments, 2% elastane in the Chino and the Cotton Sock and 7% elastane in the Boxer Brief, 18% polyamide in the Cotton Sock and 35% polyamide in the Merino Sock and a lycra-cotton mix in the cuffs of the Sweatshirt. If you are interested in the contents of a specific garment, please see the Our Quality and Traceability section on the garment's product page. We recommend using a Guppy Friend washing bag when washing garments that contain plastic fibers. The Guppy Friend collects microplastics that come off garments in the wash and prevents the microplastics from getting out in the water supply.

USE PHASE IMPACT OF A T-SHIRT (50 LAUNDRY CYCLES)

Wash temperature & drying type

Emissions per wash cycle

Emissions per drying cycle

Number of cycles

Total emissions

Total energy consumption

180gsm T-Shirt share of 7kg/15lb load

40°C (warm) + tumble dry

6.9 g CO2e

29 g CO2e

50

1798.9 g CO2e

203 kWh

180gsm T-Shirt share of 7kg/15lb load

30°C (cold) + line dry

5.9 g CO2e

0

50

295.5 g CO2e

30 kWh

180gsm T-Shirt share of 7kg/15lb load

EU avg. (41°C, 12% tumble 88% line dry)

7.2 g CO2e

3.5 g CO2e

50

532.5 g CO2e

57 kWh