This foolproof method for quickly drying your laundry (no, it's not a dryer!)

At the start of each season, its new trend (or trend as the young people say)! With the arrival of autumn leading to a drop in temperatures and an increase in humidity in the air, a fashion dedicated to linen care is massively relayed on social networks and in the media. It's Japanese drying, of course.

The Japanese drying technique consists of applying the so-called “rainbow” method. Concretely, the principle is to strategically hang all the laundry on hangers by positioning the longest pieces of laundry at the ends of a rack and the shortest in the center. This drying, in a curve, we might say less poetically than our Japanese friends, would allow the air to circulate better than drying on a tancarville could do (a word to add to your lexicon “linen care”), therefore dry more quickly while avoiding bad odors.

To actually observe this phenomenon, we had fun washing our laundry and drying it using the appropriate method. So we washed 2 kg of laundry twice, systematically choosing the same pieces of clothing: two pairs of pants, four t-shirts and two tea towels. We hung a first batch using a rack, hangers and hanging the clothes from longest to shortest. Then we tackled the second, like at home, on a tancarville by positioning the pieces of laundry on a bar. The two drying racks were placed in a common room with an ambient temperature of 19.9°C and without windows.

Japanese drying faster than classic drying

After 4 hours of drying, the results already speak for themselves: the “rainbow” drying acts much more quickly than laundry simply placed on the tancarville, which retained 620 ml of water more than its Japanese-style dried counterpart. The situation does not improve for classic drying which, on D+1, is still quite humid (100 ml of water stored in the fibers versus dry weighing), while the laundry on the rack and hangers is perfectly dry.

It's hard not to feel like you're knocking open doors with this micro-test. Unlike laundry placed on the tancarville, that hung on a hanger is less in contact with its own humidity. Air therefore circulates better in the fibers, drying is faster and the smell of humidity has less time to settle into the fabrics. QED!

However, the reality is more complex. Not everyone necessarily has a clothes rack at home, and besides, it is not practical when you have to hang a large quantity of laundry. And how do we go about underwear? That's the whole point of this Instagram vs. Reality.

Drying with tongs: a preferred option

Upon reading the results of this micro-test, Renaud (editor-in-chief of Digitalbecause we like to wash our dirty laundry as a family…) circumspect explains to us that he has the best technique for drying his laundry: he uses clothespins on his tancarville.

Without a second thought, we run to the lab to check if his technique is more viable than Japanese drying. And there, Renaud will be disillusioned: if drying laundry hung on tongs is significantly faster than traditional drying, it is less so than the Japanese method. It nevertheless had the merit of being perfectly dry the next morning, whereas at the same time, the one spread on the tancarville using the classic method was still wet.

As much fun as it was for the team Digitalthis little test is not based on absolute values. Indeed, the weight of the laundry, the quality of the textiles, the hardness of the water or even the humidity level in the air are all factors that can upset the results. In addition, these methods are primarily intended for those who do not have a yard or garden, where they can let the laundry gently get rid of residual moisture with a gentle breeze.

However, this gives a tendency to favor hanging laundry indoors, ecologically and economically. For those who wish to avoid racks, hangers and all the fuss, using clothespins is also an option to consider.

For others, there are also tumble dryers. By the way, our buying guides can also guide you in your purchasing process!