Can you wash vertical blinds in the washing machine?

Can you clean vertical blinds in the washing machine? That depends on whether or not they’re machine washable, which is probably the most obvious and unhelpful statement you’ll hear all day (unless you live with a teenager).

In a slightly more helpful vein, you can check if the fabric is machine washable by reading the care instructions that came with your blinds, but assuming that you threw these out as soon as you’d hung your blinds like every other normal human, by having a look at the manufacturer’s website, or asking the manufacturer directly.

If your blinds don’t state that they’re machine washable or you’re not sure, putting them in the wash is apt to result in them shrinking, discolouring, fraying, and warping, and generally serving no future function as blinds.

If you find that to be the case for your own blinds, feel free to take the answer for you personally as “no” and skip the rest of this blog post, but do consider heading on over to this post instead, to find out how to clean vertical blinds manually, regardless of what they’re made of.

Meanwhile, if you’re confident that your own vertical blinds are theoretically machine washable and will live to tell the tale of their dunking without damage, read on to learn how to machine wash vertical blinds step by step.

How to machine wash vertical blinds

If you find out that your vertical blinds can be machine washed, don’t just yank them off the headrails, throw the whole lot in on a 90-degree cycle, and then come crying to us because said blinds are no longer blinds; follow these directions on how to wash vertical blinds in a washing machine instead.

1. Remove the chains and weights from the bottom of the louvres.
2. Unhook the louvres from the headrail and remove the hangers from the tops of each louvre.
3. Roll the bunch of louvres up into a neat cylinder.
4. If possible, put the louvres into a “delicates” bag (those white perforated fabric bags you can get in places like Poundland and Wilko to protect your smalls from getting snagged on bra hooks and zips) or even in a pillowcase at a pinch. This will help to protect them in the wash.
5. Put your vertical blind louvres in the washing machine and choose a “delicates” wash setting with water no warmer than 30 degrees Celsius, along with a gentle detergent (ideally non-bio). Don’t use a fabric softener, and DO NOT spin dry your louvres!
6. When the wash cycle has finished, blot the louvres dry with a towel if they’re very wet (which they might be due to the lack of spin) and then lie them flat to dry naturally. Don’t peg them to a washing line or re-hang them on the headrail until they’re dry, as they may stretch.

Can you tumble dry vertical blinds?

Given that you can’t spin vertical blinds in the washing machine and that not all vertical blinds can be machine washed in the first place, putting even machine-washed blinds in the tumble dryer is entering Midvale School for the Gifted territory.

So no, unfortunately you can’t tumble dry vertical blinds and have them live to tell the tale!