Livia got some adorable tutus for Christmas. Of course she managed to get one of them terribly dirty almost immediately. The care label said that it needed to be hand-washed. Uh-oh! I don’t do hand-washing.
“Well,” I said to my husband. “If it can be hand-washed, it can be machine-washed.” He gave me a sort of confused look and said, “Isn’t it the other way around?” Yes. Certainly, if you can machine-wash something, you can hand-wash it, though why anyone would want to do that if they had a washing machine handy, I do not know. But what I meant is that “hand-wash only” can be interpreted to mean “you can get this wet and use detergent on it, but it’s delicate, so be careful.” So I take delicate, hand-wash items and turn them inside-out, put them in a mesh bag or (if very small) in a sock, and wash them on the gentle cycle. Then I hang them up to dry.
This works perfectly about 90% of the time. The other 10% of items come out of the washer looking a little worn. But I have never totally destroyed anything by putting it in the washer. So I say there’s no such thing as “hand-wash only.”
P.S. I have washed Livia’s tutus several times since and they still look brand-new.