butiloveu

If they harden up because of hard water (for example water with a high lime content). Try to put them in a bucket with water and two big scopes of citric acid powder 4h to 12h before washing them. You can get citric acid almost anywhere online (ebay, Amazon etc.) This should soften them.

You can also use citric acid as a washing powder replacement if you don't look for deep cleaning but softening your cotton cloth, but don't use to much of it or too often because it can and will attack the metal parts of the washing machine.

But usually the the motor will die before serious damaged is caused as long you don't overdo it.

Avariy was pretty good. Then Adobe bought and killed it. It's still possible to download it, but a lot of the free stuff, filters and etc are missing because they shut down the servers.