10 Hacks to Keep Your Clothes Looking Like New

How to bring a rumpled hat back to life, get rid of pills without the help of special equipment, and prevent buttons from falling off your clothes are all things you can achieve easily. Effective life hacks like these will save you time, money and nerves.

1. Put ice cubes into the dryer to remove wrinkles.

Put a couple of ice cubes into the dryer and set it on medium mode for about 15 minutes. The ice cubes will melt and turn into steam which will help remove any wrinkles from your clothing. Alternatively, you can put a damp sock into the dryer along with the wrinkled clothing.

2. Get rid of pills on your clothing with a razor.

Grab one of your razors from the shower along with some masking tape. Be sure to do this slowly so you don’t accidentally slice a hole in your clothing.

1. Wash the garment.

2. Shave parts containing pills.

3. Use a lint roller or tape to pick up the pilling.

3. Use steam to return the shape to your hat without using any special equipment.

Take a small pan and boil water in it. Make the fire small and put a cap or hat on top of the pan. The steam will gradually straighten the creases and return the shape to the hat.

4. Restore faded clothing with salt.

Add 1/2 cup (150 g) of salt to the wash cycle. Once you’ve placed your clothes and detergent in the washing machine, pour about 1/2 cup (150 g) of salt into the drum. In addition to restoring colors, it can also help prevent new clothes from fading in the first place.

You can add salt to every load of laundry if you’d like.

Regular table salt or ultra-fine pickling salt works well for this, but avoid coarse-ground sea salt as it may not dissolve fully in the washing machine.

Salt is also an effective stain remover, especially with blood, mildew, and sweat stains.

5. Use bluing agents for white clothes to restore their original whiteness.

Household bleach (sodium hypochlorite) is often used as a laundry booster or whitener. However, its chemical makeup can often make white clothes turn yellow. Laundry bluing is an old trick to get yellowed or greyed whites to appear brighter. Bluing adds a very slight trace of blue dye to the fabric, making it appear more white.

6. Button and zip your clothes before washing them.

Take a few extra moments before you throw everything into the hamper or washing machine to zip and button your clothes. This prevents closures from catching on other clothing and keeps buttons from pulling or loosening. If you don’t, you run the risk of catching, pulling or tearing fabric, damaging the locking mechanism, and pulling buttons during washing.

7. Use dental floss to make your buttons hold longer.

If you want to prevent your buttons from falling off, just stitch them with dental floss. It’s a good trick, especially for buttons that get heavy wear.

8. Remove odor from shoes with baking soda.

Measure out at least 1 tablespoon of baking soda into each shoe. You need to use enough baking soda to cover the entire insole of the shoe. If you have big shoes, you may need to use more than 1 tablespoon of baking soda.

9. Use hair straighteners to iron shirt collars.

If even after ironing, your collar does not look perfect, then a hair straightener will fix it. It’s also a good life hack when you’re in a hurry and you don’t have time to get an ironing board out. Just be careful not to burn the fabric.

10. Unshrink cotton with baby shampoo.

Cotton is perhaps the easiest mistake to fix due to its easily manipulated qualities. All you need is baby shampoo.

1. Place your clothes inside your sink or a bowl and fill it with lukewarm water.
2. Add 2 tablespoons of your shampoo or conditioner.
3. Let it soak for 30 minutes.
4. Place the clothing flat on a towel and roll it up so that it’s damp. Then, carefully unroll your garment and lay it flat to dry.