The effect of Gravity on your laundry

Gravity: the third and probably most overlooked influence on your laundry’s drying speed.

Obviously clothes soak up moisture in the wash – but it can move surprising freely once it’s there.

Gravity does a great job of pulling moisture down in hung up item to concentrate ‘round the bottom. So, knowing that, here are a couple of things to consider when arranging your wash on the line:

I cringe every time I see jeans hung up by the bottom hem. Water is just going to collect in the heaviest, multi-layered part of their construction and take much, much longer to bring in.  What will get them driest, fastest is if you can engineer it so the contained moisture is drawn to the area that is easiest to dry. In this case the legs. So, after turning them inside out (Remember? Wind?) hang up by the waistband – it’s the strongest part of the garment anyway.

This is true of anything, it’s just that jeans are the most obvious.

Shirts for example, are best hung by their collars. (Again, their strongest part) You don’t need to fold over the line and risk creasing them, they’re just not that heavy. Just ‘pinch’ them on the line with the peg. Lift up and peg the cuffs the same way – preferably on a separate, parallel line – and they’ll be back in the basket in no time!

• Hot tip 1: Do shirts before small items like socks. Much easier to find space for little things around big things already up than vice versa.
• Hot tip 2: Good idea to turn shirts inside too. They won’t dry any faster but they’ll fade on the inside where it doesn’t matter.

“But what about stretch marks on my polo neck?” I hear you ask… Fair question. Definitely don’t hang upside down – that’ll just make it worse (and take longer to dry). No, just fold a little of the top over the line and peg on the seam in the underarms. It’s strong there and marks won’t show later.