If you think you’re doing your laundry right, you’re wrong. Here are 5 mistakes to avoid.

A laundry expert says some common mistakes when doing laundry include using too hot water and too much products.

I believe that laundry is a spoken education passed down through families. Because of this, bad habits can be picked up unknowingly.

Working in the laundry business for the last six years and co-authoring a book with my dad about laundry, I’ve seen some common mistakes people make when it comes to washing their clothes.

Here’s what you should avoid on your next laundry day.

Water temperature is too hot

A lot of people think hot water should be the default go-to temperature. While hot water is going to give you the best clean, using it often isn’t necessary or good for your laundry.

Using cold water is going to allow your clothes to last a lot longer and look better because it isn’t as aggressive as using hot water. It’ll prevent colors from fading and holes from forming.

The thing about cold water is that it isn’t actually cold. It’s about 30 Celsius, or 81 Fahrenheit. You’re still going to get a really good clean with it.

I like to think of hot water washes as calling in the power washer — it’s for when something is really stained, dirty, or smelly.

For towels and sheets, it may be worth throwing everything in a hot wash once a month for a deep clean, but cold washes can and should be used in between.

But there are ways to get an extra good clean without always using hot water.

Every other month, I might throw in the drum on the machine some powdered laundry boosters that make the water detergent work better. Things like water softeners or a type of sodium carbonate. There are also rinse products that have a low pH solution that gets dispenses during the rinse cycle and dissolve any leftover residue for a deeper clean.

Plus, you reduce your energy usage by 90% when you stop using hot water to clean clothes.

Using too much product

Thinking you want to get a load of clothes extra clean, you might put in extra detergent. But this isn’t going to necessarily work.

When too much detergent is used, it’s hard to rinse out, leaving the residue of it on your clothes. Leftover product on clothing is the one of the reasons people get skin irritation from their laundry.

It can also lead to your machine working harder because the sensors can tell the clothes aren’t rinsed of suds.

When you see a ton of suds in your machine, that’s the detergent telling you there is no room in the water for it to go so now it has to go into the air.

If I’m doing a small refresh load for just me, I might use one tablespoon of detergent. For a medium load that isn’t too dirty, I’d use two tablespoons. For a really large, pretty dirty load, I’m use four tablespoons.

Using chlorine bleach

You’ll never find chlorine bleach in any dry-cleaning operation. It’s extremely dangerous for laundry. It goes deep down and strips all color away from the fabric, creating holes and uncorrectable discoloration.

As an alternative, use non-chlorinated bleach. Maybe twice a year after washing and before drying, take things like sheets or shirts with sweat stains and put them in a bath with hot water and powdered bleach to soak overnight. That will get rid of all those stains, but without stripping the color.

Or you could spray hydrogen peroxide on the stain and wait for it to work overnight.

Both methods blow people’s minds because they really do work at restoring color and removing stains.

Putting clothes on a timed dry

I would never use a timed dry because it is a good way to overcook your clothes. When you over dry clothes, it will cause wrinkles hard to come out. It’s also one of the most hectic and aggressive environments your clothes will be in. You want to minimize heat whenever possible.

There are some clothes I wouldn’t ever stick in a dryer like wool and silk. Those should be dried flat on a towel.

Synthetics don’t need to go in the dryer either because they dry so quickly.

With cottons, it’s best to pull them out of the dryer when they are just the tiniest bit damp because you’ll prevent wrinkling. Finish them off air drying.

Not pre-treating enough

Pre-treating clothes goes such a long way. I keep a stain remover by my clothes hamper and will spray it on stains when I take it off. It’s best to treat a stain as soon as possible, but once treated, it doesn’t have to be washed right away. Often, leaving the treatment on the stain is even better at stain removal.

There are four different types of stains: grease or oil, oxidizable, enzymatic, and particulate. Once you know the type of stain, it’s easy to treat.

Once washed, make sure they stain is gone before drying because once a garment is dry, it’s harder to get the stain out.