UKH

Morning all 

I just put my rope through a gentle wash in the machine, with no detergent. 

However, I think I made a blunder of not putting the machine through an empty cycle before this to make sure any residual detergent washed out. 

Do I need to retire the rope? 

Thank you 

No. It'll be fine. 

Out of interest, what do you think they put in detergent that will damage nylon? 

If you are worried then give it a good rinse in the bath or shower.   

It should definitely be retired immediately. Send it to me and I can dispose of it sustainably.

Impostor,it should be sent to me immediately as a fully ratified dodgy gear disposal agent.I will of course re-imburse the postage once back from the visit to my Nigerian cousin.

I think the reason you're supposed to do an empty wash first is because the detergent may remove some or all of the dry treatment from the rope.  So it might soak up more water, and might ice up more in winter use. I wouldn't see that as cause to retire it though.

That's the reason when washing waterproofs, and was the only thing I could think of for ropes. But if you use powder, you have to do more than an empty wash; you have to clean out all the powder residue gunk that accumulates in the water path. That's one reason i use drum-loaded liquid detergent, so the  water path is always spotless.

Thank you all.

The rope was not dry treated anyway so no damage to be done there.  

I thought I read a rock and ice article saying that detergent could damage the strength of the rope. 

If anything goes wrong with it you’re all more than welcome to it.