2022.09.20

Autumn equinox – high time to wash your summer clothes

September 23rd marks the autumnal equinox and summer is officially over. It's also time to get out your winter clothes and wash and hang up your summer clothes.

Ironing is hardly a favorite pastime for most people, but it is likely that ironed garments are more resistant to dirt than unironed garments, which is why it may be wise to spruce up your summer clothes before you hang them up.

If you have a dryer with a steam function, it can be used to refresh and smooth out garments, regardless of whether they are washed beforehand or not. You can also use a steamer instead of an iron.

Steamer – for smoother smoothing

A steamer – sometimes called a steam iron – uses hot steam to dissolve creases and wrinkles with heat and moisture, which then disappear as the garment dries. There are two types – handheld steamers and standing steamers.

A handheld steamer can be used in both horizontal and vertical positions. It is also convenient and time-saving to use it directly on garments hanging on their hangers. Compared to an iron, you don't have to get out the ironing board and remove the garment from the hanger to iron.

A standing steamer has the advantage that the water tank – which is located on the floor instead of in the steamer itself – is significantly larger, usually 1-2 liters compared to 1-2 dl in a handheld version. A standing steamer can therefore be used for much longer before you need to refill water.

In Sweden, over 220,000 irons/smootheners of various models are sold annually. Approximately 60 percent of these are traditional steam irons and steamers make up approximately 35 percent – the remaining 5 percent are dry irons and irons with steam generators.

Steamers are available from, among others, Electrolux, Thorough, Philips and Tefal.

Therefore, the autumn equinox is moved

The autumnal equinox is not a day, but a precise time when the sun is completely perpendicular to the Earth's axis, which this year occurs at 03:03 on September 23. At the autumnal equinox, like the spring equinox, the sun is directly over the equator and shines equally in the southern and northern hemispheres, meaning that night and day are approximately the same length across the Earth.

The autumnal equinox means that summer has officially ended and autumn has begun, and it lasts until the winter solstice on December 21. Then follows the spring equinox on March 20, 2023, and the summer solstice on June 21, 2023. These four solstices map out the seasons year after year.

The fact that the spring and autumn equinoxes do not always fall on the same date is because we have approximately 365.25 days in a year. A sidereal year is the Earth's orbital period around the sun in relation to the stars, which corresponds to 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes and just under 10 seconds. We compensate for this by adding a leap day every four years, but despite this, the autumnal equinox moves backwards in time during the year by approximately 12 minutes each year. To correct this, in the year 2100 we will skip the leap day and in this way restore the time to its correct position.

Text: Ola Larsson