Why you should put a wet wipe in the washing machine with your laundry

Like every pet owner, I’m constantly doing battle with the stray hairs left around my home by my two short-haired black-colored dogs. While adorable, my dogs shed like crazy. That’s why I was intrigued by this cleaning hack from Brightside.me. You simply add a wet wipe to a normal wash cycle, and it will attract any loose pet hair, dirt, or lint from your laundry as it washes, leaving your clothes cleaner-looking without having to break out the lint roller. Basically, the wet wipe acts like a dryer sheet, but for your washing machine.

To test this cleaning hack out, I decided to wash the black car seat cover that my dogs sit on whenever we drive anywhere. It’s the one item I own that’s most in need of deep cleaning and de-fuzzing. Since I go hiking with my dogs a lot, the seat cover ends up with dust, sweat, and yes, lots of random hairs. (But, hey, better the seat cover than my car’s leather upholstery.)

Here is a close-up of the seat cover where you can see the hairs on the cover:

Next, I loaded the seat cover and a single unscented baby wipe into the washer and ran a normal cycle. Note: You can use any kind of wet wipe you have on hand, but keep in mind that a scented wipe might perfume your laundry with that scent. Brightside.me suggests avoiding paper or fabric wipes, and making sure your wet wipes are strong.

After the laundry load was finished, I pulled out the wipe and was impressed with the amount of hair that was sticking to it. Here’s how it looked:

The wipe certainly picked up a lot of dog hair. However, it didn’t magically attract every piece of lint in the washing machine to it like a magnet, so the seat cover still had some hairs sticking to it — although significantly less than before. Considering the size of the seat cover and how dirty it was, I would still say that this hack was a win. And, in the future, I would try adding more than one wipe to the wash to boost the cleaning power.

Overall, this seems like a great laundry hack. While the lint traps and dryer sheets basically do the same thing, this trick is ideal for delicate clothes that require air-drying since it removes loose pet hair, lint and dirt in the washing machine, rather than the dryer. Plus, it leaves clothes visibly cleaner, so you have much less to brush out with a lint roller.

Will you try out this laundry tip?