How to Wash Your Rope

Customers call us all the time asking, “How do I wash my rope?” Our answer is pretty standard throughout the industry:

It is okay to use the hot water setting on your clothes washer as it likely won’t damage the rope. During the manufacturing process, the rope is exposed to high temperature steam. Damage to nylon does not occur until it has been exposed to over 300˚ water for over 5 hours. Use a non-bleach detergent soap like the Sterling Rope Wash™ or another non-bleach detergent soap. Do Not Use Bleach! Hot water alone will also generally wash a rope pretty well.

Use a front loading washer or your bath tub but, realize the rope could get stuck and break the machine or damage the rope. The bathtub is the safest way. When using a washing machine, daisy chain the rope and put it in a mesh stuff sack. Run two rinse cycles to thoroughly rinse all the soap out of the rope. When using the bath tub, rinse until the rope runs clean. Check out the video below for reference on how to daisy chain a rope.

To dry the rope, hang it loosely out of direct sunlight. Do not use a heat drier as the heat may damage the rope.