Biking kit washing Detergent whats good ?

Need to try and maintain DWR/ waterproof coating if possible, this time of year they need washing after every ride.
I am trying some ODO sports wash stuff from CRC that was on offer, smells good but not sure about DWR coating. Used Halo in the past again ok .
I have even thought of a seperate machine , not sure if thats a step too far.
So what is good/bad ??

In my experience Halo is fine for general kit. For Goretex / eVent / membrane-based materials then Nikwax Tekwash or soap flakes are better.

Just use soap flakes (not too much though) you can get it from Boots if your local supermarket doesn’t have any.

I like this

Where are you buying that ^^^ Joe

Detergents are exactly what you shouldn’t be using if you want to retain your DWR coating.

So how do you do yours ??

General kit; any washing powder/liquid/tablet plus Napisan

For DWR, whatever the manufacturer recommends.

i used a Galvin Green jacket when I used to play a lot of golf and after asking them how maintain the waterproofing they told me to use Non Bio wash powder and make sure it was dried using a tumble dryer as the heat is what reactivates the vortex waterproofing. did this for over 5 years and never go wet when in use

blastit – Member

Where are you buying that ^^^ Joe

WalMart or Cabelas; but Im in the US. Amazon has it, too.

https://www.amazon.com/Atsko-Sport-Wash-Bottle-wash/dp/B001DLF6C2

Liquid soap flakes[/url] from the local hardware shop

Depends what type of DWR is used by the manufacturer.
I’ve found whatever castelli use is a bit fragile – i spoke with castelli-cafe support and settled on alternating between non-bio and tech-wash.

The teflon coating used on my endura tights on the other hand seems quite bulletproof so far and just gets a normal wash with non-bio.

At a Gore factory visit I was advised to use non bio detergent and NOT soap flakes.

This

or this

and every third wash or so followed by this for the DWR coating

The Nikwax Tech Wash is only liquid soap from what I’ve been led to believe so I don’t bother paying the premium over the supermarket stuff.

I’ve also been using the liquid soap stuff. Fabric comes out a lot softer and more flexible. I put woollens in there too.

CynicAl – what did Gore have to say about soap flakes then?

I think they said it might block the pores

soap flakes in hard water might give you a a bit of scum on the water, non bio and bio…you can generally use lower temps with bio, and they have enzymes that help to break down things like sweat and blood, non bio doesn’t have those enzymes in it, so it you have sensitive skin, you might want to use those. you might find that you have to use higher temps to get the same results from non bio.

That’s it really.

Don’t use fabric conditioner though.

Thanks, plenty of options to try

You will struggle to find soap flakes as the uk company that made them retired their machine and now just manufacture the liquid soap flakes. It’s often rebranded for various chains but I’ve found Wilkos to be cheapest.