Every sofa has one. A throw that gets used every evening, sat on, slept under, and pulled around by whoever reaches it first. Throw blankets are handled more than almost anything else in a house and washed less than almost anything else, and after a year of that a throw is carrying more than it looks like it is.
What throw blankets actually collect
Throw blankets sit at the point where a person meets furniture, which makes them the busiest textile in a living room.
Skin oil transfers every time someone lies under one, and it goes on transferring for hours at a stretch. Oil builds up in the fibre and it is what makes an old throw feel slightly heavy and look dull.
Food and drink land on throws constantly, and most of what lands there gets brushed off rather than washed out.
Pet hair works into the pile and the weave. A throw is usually the exact spot a dog or a cat chooses, which is not an accident, since it already smells like the household.
Dust settles on it the whole time it sits folded over an arm, and every shake sends some of it deeper into the fibre.
Hair product, lotion, and sunscreen come off the back of a neck and the arms and end up in the same few square feet of fabric.
How often throw blankets should be washed
There is no label answer to this, so here is a working schedule.
A throw in daily use on a sofa wants washing every two to four weeks. That is the one people wash twice a year.
A throw used a few times a week can go every month or six weeks.
A decorative throw that mostly sits folded and never gets used still wants washing two or three times a year, because dust and airborne cooking grease settle on it regardless.
If there is a pet on it, halve every interval above.
The practical test is smell and feel. A throw that smells faintly of the room rather than of nothing, or that feels slightly slick or stiff, is overdue.
Get the pet hair off before it goes in the machine
Washing pet hair off throw blankets does not work the way people expect. Wet hair mats, presses into the fibre, and comes out attached.
Remove what you can while the throw is dry. That is the whole trick.
A rubber glove dragged across the surface pulls hair into a rope you can pick off. It works better than any lint roller on fleece and knit.
A pumice stone or a fabric shaver handles hair welded into fleece pile, though a shaver takes some pile with it.
Fifteen minutes in a dryer on air fluff with no heat before washing sends a surprising amount of hair into the lint trap.
Whatever is left goes into the wash water, which is the reason a throw with a lot of hair should not share a load with clothing.
Fleece, and why fabric softener makes pilling worse
Most inexpensive throw blankets are polyester fleece, and fleece has one failure mode, which is pilling.
Pilling happens when surface fibres break, tangle, and roll into balls. Friction causes it and heat accelerates it.
Fabric softener is the accelerant nobody expects. It coats the fibres in a waxy film that mats the surface, and matted fleece pills faster and looks flat sooner.
Wash fleece in cold water, alone or with other soft items, with no softener and a modest amount of detergent.
Dry on low heat or no heat. High heat melts the surface of polyester fibres, and once they melt they stay hard and matted.
Turn a two sided throw inside out if the good side matters more than the other, since the outside takes the friction.
Knits, wool, and fringe
Chunky knit throw blankets have a different problem, which is weight. A wet knit stretches under its own weight and does not go back.
Wash knits cold and gently, and never hang one wet. Lay it flat to dry, reshaping it to size while it is damp.
Wool throws want cold water and a wool safe detergent. Agitation plus warmth is what felts wool, and felting is permanent.
Fringe tangles and knots in a wash, and once it has knotted it has to be combed out by hand. Braiding long fringe loosely before washing prevents most of it, and a mesh laundry bag prevents the rest.
Cotton throws are the easy ones. Warm water, normal cycle, and expect a little shrinkage on the first wash if they were not preshrunk.
Never wring a knit or a wool throw. Press the water out between towels instead.
Faux fur and matting
Faux fur is long polyester pile stitched into a backing, and the pile is the only reason anyone buys it.
Heat destroys it. The fibres soften, curl at the tips, and lock together into mats that do not comb out.
Wash cold, on a gentle cycle, alone, with no softener at all. Softener flattens pile faster on faux fur than on anything else.
Air dry it, or use no heat in a dryer. Draped over a rack rather than folded, so the pile is not compressed while it is wet.
Once dry, brush the pile with a soft brush or a wide tooth comb, working in the direction the fibres lie. This is what restores the look, and it does more than the wash does.
Do not iron faux fur under any circumstance, and keep it away from radiators and heat vents.
A throw is small, and it still needs room
This is the part that catches people, because throw blankets look like a light load.
A throw is one large continuous piece of fabric, and large continuous pieces rope up in a drum. Roped fabric washes on the outside and stays dry in the middle.
Fleece and faux fur are worse for this, since they are slick when wet and slide into a tight cylinder.
Wash one throw at a time, or one throw with a few small soft items, and use less than the drum looks like it could hold.
Water volume matters more than cycle choice here. A throw needs enough water to float and move, and a packed drum gives it neither.
The same applies in the dryer. A tightly packed throw dries on the surface and stays damp inside, and damp fibre stored folded picks up a smell within days.
The Garland part
North Texas conditions push throws harder than the climate in most places does, in a few specific ways.
The long cooling season means the air conditioning runs for a large part of the year, and rooms kept cool indoors are exactly where people reach for a throw. Something that would be a winter item elsewhere gets year round use here, so the wash intervals above should be treated as the minimum rather than the target.
Dust is constant. Dry spells and wind mean fine dust gets into a house and settles on horizontal fabric, and a throw folded over the arm of a sofa is horizontal fabric. Shaking it outdoors before a wash removes more than most people expect.
Hard water is the last factor and it changes the result more than the cycle does. Mineral rich water leaves deposit in fibre, and in a pile fabric like fleece or faux fur that deposit is what makes a throw feel stiff and look dull after a few washes. Use less detergent rather than more, add a rinse, and skip softener entirely, since softener and hard water together are what turn a soft throw into a scratchy one.
Where a throw gets room to move
Throw blankets fail in a small drum for the same reason bedding does, which is that they rope up and never really wash.
The machines at our self-service laundry on Marketplace Drive give a throw enough water volume to float and move rather than rope, and the drum size that bulky bedding needs means nothing washes only on the outside.
Our machines and the store are cleaned daily.
Our wash-dry-fold service covers the everyday laundry.
For general guidance, The American Cleaning Institute publishes a fabric care guide that is a useful cross-check.
The short version
Throw blankets take on skin oil, food, dust, hair product, and pet hair every single day and almost never get washed. A throw in daily use wants a wash every two to four weeks, and half that with a pet on it. Pull the hair off while the throw is dry, since wet hair mats into the fibre and stays. Wash fleece and faux fur cold, alone, with no fabric softener, because softener coats the pile and makes pilling and matting worse. Dry on low or no heat, and brush faux fur pile back up once it is dry. Lay knits and wool flat rather than hanging them wet. Give one throw a whole drum, since a roped throw never washes through.
WaveMAX Garland is at 1311 Marketplace Dr, easy to reach from Garland and the surrounding area. If you have bedding that will not fit at home, call us at 214-954-7063.