I've been washing tzizit now for about 14 years. I just don't get it. These holy garments need to be hand-washed. I don't even hand wash delicates. If it’s not machine washable, I don't own it. One of my sons figured out that if he just wears the same pair all week, he only has 1 pair to put away. His twin, however, likes a new pair to wear each day making washing all of them a lesson in patience and knot removal. It seems that if you put tzizit in the washing machine and/or dryer, the strings get all tangled and frayed rendering them less than kosher. They have invented these little "tizizit-washing bags" that hold your tizizit secure during a machine wash. They don't work.
This year I was determined (with much encouragement from my husband "Do NOT machine wash them") to wash them all by hand. This now became a 30 minute weekly project requiring a large sink, beach towel and mop by the time I was through. Lately I've taken to machine washing a couple of them at a time, hoping they don't fray and then hand drying them. The dryer seems to be the worse culprit of the 2 machines. I am wondering why someone has not invented snap-on tzizit, so they can be removed while the garment is washed and dried and then re-attached. One thing I know for sure, if G-d had transmitted the details of this law straight to women, we would have ensured that the garment was machine washable and able to "tumble dry on low".
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