Brown suspicious flakes on clothes after washing

Hi all,
For a few months now I have been getting these suspicious soft brown flakes on my freshly washed clothes. It's annoying as I have to shake all the clothes out but the flakes don't come off easily like bits of tissue for example. You can pick them off with your fingers and the flakes kind of roll in your fingers. It makes me think they might be bits of mildew that are coming off the drum? I have a top loader and the stainless steel drum has the little holes and that's where they are coming from. What could they be and what can I do to get rid of them?
TIA

i pour some vinegar into the bowl and put a cycle on to clean the bowl every month or so - it gets rid of the build up of soap powder etc :)
im not sure what the flakes could be though, sorry

That sounds like the flakey stuff that gathers in the kids bath toys.. they have the toys that water can go into and we squeeze out the yucky looking brown flakey things.. which im not too sure what they actually are, but they are water related, like abuild up of the water somewhere... i have thrown out so many bath toys because of it!!

i would say it is something like that in your washing machine and it needs cleaning out somewhere!! Good luck!!

That's exactly what they are Starbright! Thanks hun :)

I'll try the vinegar wash Alish, I would say it's some sort of build up/soap/detergent scum stuff. Maybe I'll even try a hot bleach cycle too, can't hurt!

Thanks ladies :)

and dont use fabric softener!

I use fabric softener all the time Olive on DS's clothes......why?

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I use fabric softener all the time Olive on DS's clothes......why?

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im interested too - i use fabric softener in every wash!! i love it

Yep it's a build up of soap scum/fabric softener.. I didn't know until mine started doing it recently but we're supposed to use a descaler in our washing machines every so often just like our dishwashers need a clean out.. Bicarb and vinegar through a hot wash is great to maintain it but usually once it gets to the point of the brown flakes, the Bicarb vinegar washes only last so long.. You need to get a proper washing machine descaler like Scalex, we got ours from Bunnings, 2 rinses later and no more flakes! After that if you do a hot wash with Bicarb and vinegar once a month and use the descaler every 3 - 12 months depending on which descaler you use and the strength of it, you'll keep the flakes away apparently.. I font even think we'll need to do the descaler that often really as it took 5 years for our machine to start 'flaking' and yep I'm on my last bottle of fab soft now and then I'll just be using vinegar and essential oils.. It's apparently quite bad for our machines and thats what the build up is, all the fab soft clogging. I have noticed my clothes are softer than ever with out using softener since I put the descaler through anyway!

Hope that made sense and isn't too all over the place..

Good luck!

I agree with PP
We do a vinegar rinse at least once a week, it was suggested to my mum by the washing machine repair man, so she suggested it to us, and my machine worked so much better since then and its super cheap less than $2.
And also avoid the fabric softner if u can.

Alicia, thanks heaps hun! I'm a huge user of fabric softener and I never descale (didn't know I had to :redface:) so I did a hot bleach cycle followed my a hot vinegar cycle and there was quite a few flakes in the water, and I've just done a wash with the towels and they came up OK. I'll get get the descaler from Bunnings anyway. Got a question though, I still use fabric softener on my DS's clothes.......what do I use instead of the FS?? I don't really use it on the linen/towels/our own clothes but I like to use it on DS's clothes..

Thanks Anila, I'll be doing a vinegar rince once a week too :)

Can I also suggest after the descale...you run a load with a few drops of clove oil in it just to make sure any remaining mould spores are killed off...bleach doesn't kill mould it just bleaches it white so you can't see it anymore.....sounds like your machine needs a clove oil rinse as well.

I have never used fabric softener at all....do you really need to, like do you have hard water in your area?

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Yep it's a build up of soap scum/fabric softener.. I didn't know until mine started doing it recently but we're supposed to use a descaler in our washing machines every so often just like our dishwashers need a clean out.. Bicarb and vinegar through a hot wash is great to maintain it but usually once it gets to the point of the brown flakes, the Bicarb vinegar washes only last so long.. You need to get a proper washing machine descaler like Scalex, we got ours from Bunnings, 2 rinses later and no more flakes! After that if you do a hot wash with Bicarb and vinegar once a month and use the descaler every 3 - 12 months depending on which descaler you use and the strength of it, you'll keep the flakes away apparently.. I font even think we'll need to do the descaler that often really as it took 5 years for our machine to start 'flaking' and yep I'm on my last bottle of fab soft now and then I'll just be using vinegar and essential oils.. It's apparently quite bad for our machines and thats what the build up is, all the fab soft clogging. I have noticed my clothes are softer than ever with out using softener since I put the descaler through anyway!

Hope that made sense and isn't too all over the place..

Good luck!

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^ Yeah that !

I agree that it's a build up of the fabric softener. I started putting vinegar in the fabric softener dispenser (a good way to sanitise your clothes) and ended up getting the brown flakes a few times til it was cleaned out.

Thanks ladies :)

Mel, I think I have hard water here because if I don't use the fabric softener my clothes, especially the towels feel really stiff and yucky.

MammaSpice, I will be using the good 'ol vinegar on regular basis now. Those brown flakes are gross!! lol