How to Wash Lingerie: Fishnet & Lace Care Guide

Netting snags, lace loses its shape, and elastic quietly gives up — and all three happen fastest in a washing machine. Learning how to wash lingerie correctly is less about ritual and more about refusing to let a thirty-second convenience destroy a piece you spent an evening choosing. The method below takes five minutes at a sink, uses things every hotel and home already has, and adds years to anything made of net, lace, or stretch mesh.

Before Anything Touches Water

Sort first, wash second — this single habit prevents most damage. Make three piles: stretch mesh and netting, lace and non-stretch delicate weaves, and anything with hardware (underwires, hooks, boning) that can bend or snag its neighbors. Check the care label where there is one, and treat “hand wash” as the honest default for this whole category regardless of what the label optimistically allows. Then take off anything that can scratch: rings with stones, watches, bracelets. Fabric survives washing; it rarely survives jewelry.

Deal with spots before the soak, not during it. A drop of gentle cleanser worked into a specific mark with a fingertip, ahead of the full wash, handles almost everything this category encounters — and it does so without the whole garment being agitated twice. What it does not handle is panic treatment: bleach, spot removers built for cotton, and hot water on a fresh stain are how a small mark becomes a permanent pale patch. If something has set properly — a red wine evening, a self-tanner situation — accept the sink method’s limits and rinse repeatedly in cool water instead of escalating.

How to Wash Lingerie Without Ruining It

Five steps, five minutes. Fill a basin with cool water — cool, not warm; heat is what relaxes elastic and shrinks lace. Add a drop of gentle cleanser and swirl. Submerge the pieces and let them soak for three to five minutes, then press and squeeze them gently against the bottom of the basin; never rub fabric against fabric, which is how pilling and snagging start. Work the water through the areas that need it — under bands, along neckline trim — with your fingertips. Rinse twice in fresh cool water until no suds remain, because detergent residue left in elastic is what makes it stiff and brittle over time.

Fishnet Needs Different Hands Than Lace

The two fabrics fail in opposite ways, so they want opposite handling. Fishnet and open mesh fail by snagging: handle the piece as a unit, stretching it gently widthwise under water to flush the mesh, and never work a single “stitch” of the net with a fingertip. Lace fails by distortion: it wants zero tension of any kind, so cup it in your hands and press the water through rather than pulling it taut. Pieces that combine both — lace-edged netting, which is most of the category — get the lace treatment throughout, because lace is the more fragile partner. If netting is your main fabric, the fishnet collection is where those pieces live, and the stockings collection covers the fine-gauge versions.

Drying Without Damage

Do not wring. Wringing is the single most common way people destroy wet lingerie, because twisting concentrates the entire water-removal force on the weakest seams. Instead, lay the piece flat on a clean towel, roll the towel loosely around it, and press down with your palms — the towel takes the water, the fabric takes no stress. Unroll and lay flat to air dry away from direct sun and radiators; heat sources yellow lace and cook elastic. A shower rod works for pieces with straps; everything else prefers a flat surface, where gravity does not pull a wet, heavy hem out of shape.

Storage That Keeps the Stretch

Dry pieces store loose, not folded tight and never hung by straps for months. Roll netting and mesh gently rather than folding, which creates permanent crease lines in fine knit. Keep pieces with hooks away from anything they can catch — a simple fabric pouch or even a pillowcase separates them from the rest of a drawer. And rotate: elastic that sits compressed in the same fold for a year loses recovery it would have kept in a drawer it shared with more space. The same storage logic applies to full-body knits — the washing and care notes in our bodystocking introduction carry over to any large piece of netting.

Lingerie Care FAQs

Can I ever use the washing machine?

Conditionally, and only for the sturdiest stretch pieces: a mesh laundry bag, the coolest delicates cycle the machine offers, no spin or the lowest one, and never, ever the dryer. Lace, open netting, and anything with wire or boning still belong in the sink. The machine is a compromise you can defend for cotton-blend basics, not a general solution.

How often should lingerie be washed?

After every wear, like any garment worn against the skin. The good news is that with the sink method this is a five-minute task, not an event — which is exactly why the method is worth learning once. Pieces worn only briefly can air out and go one extra wear, but anything in contact with skin for an evening gets rinsed.

Can I iron lace or mesh to get wrinkles out?

No — and you rarely need to. Most creases fall out of mesh and knit fabrics within an hour of being worn, as body warmth relaxes the fibers. For satin and similar weaves, a bathroom steam session does the same job an iron would, without a hot plate ever touching the fabric. If you must use an iron for something in this category, put two layers of cloth between it and the garment, use the lowest setting, and accept that you are doing so against the advice of everyone who has ever repaired a scorch mark.

Does this method apply to silicone toys too?

The spirit transfers, the details differ: silicone wants mild soap and warm water rather than cool, and it dries in minutes. The cleaning routine for rose toys covers that side of the drawer. Fabric and silicone have one rule in common — clean after use, dry before storage — and everything else is material-specific.