John Lewis appliances

White streaks or residual washing powder on laundry after washing

If you have white streaks of washing detergent or powder on clothes at the end of a wash cycle they could be undissolved detergent. Re-wash without adding any more detergent. If it was a big load, re-wash in two smaller loads or just put in the affected items if not all laundry is affected.

Here are possible causes -

Overloading: If you have too much laundry in the washing machine then the detergent can get trapped in folds of laundry preventing it from dissolving properly [ Am I overloading my washing machine? ]

If you use a container for the detergent: it could get trapped in folded laundry preventing all the detergent from dispersing properly. Make sure it’s placed right at the top of the laundry and to the back of the drum.

Not using enough detergent: This is counter-intuitive but if you don’t use the correct amount of detergent you can get a film of whitish residue that can be mistaken for undissolved detergent. This is because some detergents react with minerals in hard water.

Low water pressure: This is only relevant if you put the detergent in the soap dispenser drawer. If you have low water pressure then not all the detergent may get flushed into the drum on the initial wash fill. This can allow some of the detergent left in the drawer to get flushed onto the laundry during rinsing. If this is happening and you can’t improve the water pressure I would switch to placing detergent in a dosing container (provided by detergent manufacturers) on top of the laundry.

Another alternative to prevent this problem would be to switch to liquid detergent but liquid detergent does not contain any bleaching agents and can result in mould and gunge in the washing machine

[ Related advice (including advice about liquid detergent) You don’t just use one detergent do you? ]

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Comments

  1. avatar KV says:

    Can we claim a refund from the seller of the washing machine (Hotpoint) if it is leaveing detergent after the clothes have been washed. They (sellers of the machine) are saying because their engineer is saying it is mecahnically okay we can not claim anything – surely this cannot not be correct as the clothes are not been washed properly one of the main reason why you purchase a washing na=machine for.

  2. avatar Washerhelp says:

    KV: If poor washing results can be shown to be caused by a fault then of course you have an issue that needs resolving. Are you sure the white streaks aren’t caused by any of the things mentioned in my article? None of the causes I list are the washing machines fault. I can’t think of any cause related to a fault on the washing machine other than if the drum wasn’t turning on wash maybe.

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