Ironing Hacks Worth Knowing About

As the old adage (sort of) goes – if ironing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. Reduce your ironing time, hone your technique and get best-ever results with these genius tips…

Start with fewer creases by unloading the machine as soon as the wash cycle finishes. Give the clothes a good shake to straighten them out before hanging up to dry.

Where you iron matters: do it in the bedroom and you’ll be able to hang and store away garments as soon as they’re ironed, protecting all your hard work. It may sound obvious but iron in good light so that creases can’t hide in the shadows.

Temperature rising

Order items to iron from lowest setting to highest so that you can gradually increase the temperature of your iron as you go (much easier than waiting for it to cool down). Checking the care label will also head off damaging delicate items.

If your ironing pile is always on the large side, consider a steam generator iron. The higher steam output makes light work of wrinkly laundry, helping you sail rather than slog through the stack.

Long, straight strokes give best results on the ironing board. Wiggling the iron around too much can stretch the fabric. Use the full length of the board and feed ironed areas away from you as you go to stop them getting re-creased.

Avoid the sheen that’s particularly noticeable on dark garments after pressing by ironing the item inside out – also best for velvet, corduroy and textured fabrics. Prevent puckering by ironing cuffs, collars and hems on the reverse side first.

Don’t get marked down

Turn out pockets before you press so you don’t end up with telltale pocket marks. Iron embroidery and eyelets face down on a thick towel to avoid marks and flattening. And iron around anything delicate like glitter, sequins or fine lace.

Try this neat trick to keep pleats sharp – pin them or hold the pleats in place with paper clips! No more fiddling, just lovely uniform lines.

Had an ironing mishap? No drama. Wipe the scorch stain with a clean cloth dipped in a little white vinegar then rinse with cold water. That should get rid of the evidence. For more serious burn marks, try this.

Talking of stains, ironing dirty garments is a sure-fire way to set stains so don’t do it.

Cared for irons care for clothes

Take care of your iron by wiping it clean with a damp soft cloth – never use cleaners or solvents. Oh and don’t iron over zips or lie your iron down flat on rough surfaces as this will scratch the soleplate.

If you’re in a pesky hard water area and suffer with limescale, try one of our brilliant Anti-Scale irons that collect the scale with our patented collectors before it has a chance to ruin your lovely clothes! And stop scale completely in it’s tracks with Ultimate Pure, our top of the range traditional iron that filters 100% of the steam so you never have to worry about scale stains again!

And with that you’re all set to tackle the laundry pile. Pop on your favourite tunes and get pressing!