Washing real linen

Real linen creases. It has creased since before your grandmother's tablecloth was woven, and it will crease on the way from the drawer to the table no matter how carefully you fold it. This is not a flaw to be managed around. It is the fibre doing what flax does, and it is one of the reasons the cloth looks like something rather than nothing.

Why the crease is the point

Cotton is a soft, springy fibre and bounces back smooth. Linen is stiffer, and it holds a fold rather than shedding it. That is also why it drapes with weight instead of clinging, why it does not pill, and why it gets better with use instead of wearing thin the way cotton does. A linen cloth straight from the wash, laid over a table while still a little damp, will drop most of its creases under its own weight within an hour or two. What is left is texture, not untidiness. If you want it flat and formal, iron it. Most days, we do not bother.

Washing it

• Machine wash on a cool cycle, 30°C or the cold setting.
• Use a normal amount of a gentle detergent. No fabric softener. It coats the fibre and dulls the texture that makes linen worth having.
• Tumble dry on low, and take it out of the dryer while it is still a little damp rather than running it to fully dry.
• Lay it or hang it flat straightaway. The creases drop out on their own by the time you need it.
• Iron only if you want it formal, on a hot setting with the cloth still slightly damp, or with steam.

Wash it as often as any tablecloth needs washing, and no more. Linen does not want to be laundered after every light use, only when it is actually dirty.

Stains: wine, grease, and candle wax

Wine comes out with cold water and patience, not hot water and panic. Blot the spill immediately, do not rub, and flush the back of the stain with cold water to push it out rather than through. Cold, plain water alone will lift most of it before the cloth ever sees a machine. If a shadow remains, work in a little white vinegar or a stain remover made for wine before washing as usual. Hot water sets the stain by cooking the pigment into the fibre, so avoid it until the stain is gone.

Grease and butter respond to the opposite instinct. Scrape off what you can, dust the mark with cornstarch or talc to draw the oil out, leave it fifteen minutes, then brush it off and wash as normal. For candle wax, let it harden fully, chip away what will come off with a blunt knife, then place the cloth between two sheets of paper towel and press with a warm iron. The wax melts into the paper. Repeat with a fresh sheet until nothing more transfers, then wash.

Storing it

Fold it loosely rather than pressed into a tight square, and refold along a slightly different line every so often so the same crease is not forced permanently into the weave. A cool, dry drawer or shelf is fine. Never bleach linen, chlorine or otherwise. It breaks down the fibre and yellows undyed flax rather than whitening it, and there is no undoing that.

Softening happens with time and washing, not with additives. Every cool wash relaxes the fibre a little more, and a linen cloth in its fifth year sits better on the table than it did in its first.