How should I wash clothes in Japan?
- By
- Aparna Patel
- |
- 19 Jul, 2023
- |
One thing to be careful of is that many laundry machines in Japan are now the super-high efficient kind that need very low or non-sudsing detergent.
Detergent that’s now sold in Japan is fine, but if you bring detergent from your home country, it may be high-sudsing — which can cause the machine to overflow with suds or even damage it.
So regardless of whether you use a coin laundry or the laundry machine in a ryokan/guest-house/private-home, either use the laundry detergent provided or buy your own from a local store (even a ¥100 store has some) — and only use your own home-country detergent if you are absolutely sure that it’s low-sudsing, high-efficiency compatible detergent.
Info link: http://home.howstuffworks.com/appliances/energy-efficient/5-high-efficiency-detergents.htm
When I hiked through Japan in 1999 I mainly was guided by the Lonely Planet edition of that year. Every hotel/inn/B&B I stayed had modern (western style)- do it yourself – washing machines. I never experienced any problem. I don’t know the situation when you get of the lonely planet track
- Practical food to take on flight without anything served?
- Why are round-trip car rentals much cheaper than one-way car rentals?
Staffed laundries are more common in Japan than laundromats, but hotels, ryokan and minshuku will often have washing machines you can use as well.
Washing machines are fully automatic, the cold water is compensated for by more aggressive detergents. So it could be that detergent you bring along would not be effective.
- Why is it uncommon to fill airliners from both ends?
- Any trouble at Florida customs for not paying a California speeding ticket from 5 years ago?
There is for example this company that has a website where they list all the coin-laundries (コインランドリー). You will have to know how to read addresses in Japanese at least to use this.
There are tons of others, also usually found in remote areas:
- coin-laundry.co.jp
- ciao-net.jp
- mocomoco-jp.com
- super-laundry.net
- (google for コインランドリー 店舗一覧 to find more)
In terms of washing, there is nothing to worry about. Everything works just as fine as hot water and pretty much the same. I found this article that says that you can compensate for the temperature by either longer washing or stronger chemicals. I am not 100% certain what the norm is in Japan. I would google translate the most important terms though or ask someone who speaks english to come with you the first time. I would not expect anyone in these shops to speak english or any of the buttons on the machine to be english.
The only thing is that Japanese detergent usually are not smelling “nice”. They have a rather chemical smell. It seems that Japanese consumers relate a chemical detergent smell more to “clean” than something flowery.
- How dangerous is India for solo women travellers, or female-only groups?
- How do I pay for something via a konbini kiosk without actually being in Japan?
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘