While an iron is great at smoothing out wrinkles and flaws, it’s not always practical. Limited time, energy, or lack of equipment can make it necessary to rely on your dryer to handle creases instead.

For those moments, we turned to our in-house expert, Carolyn Forté—Executive Director of the Home Care & Cleaning Lab at the Good Housekeeping Institute—for her advice on the best dryer setting to prevent wrinkles.

This ensures your clothes stay neat and presentable, especially before an important occasion.

The best dryer cycle to remove wrinkles

According to Forté, there’s no one-size-fits-all for wrinkle-free drying. The best thing you can do is “check and follow the care label [on your clothing] first to see what dryer cycle and temperature it recommends.”

However, if you’re ever in doubt and need a quick fix, Forté recommends using your dryer’s preset Delicate cycle. It’s a gentle dry setting that’s great at smoothing fabrics and common on most machines.

“It’s always best to select the automatic cycles over just timed dry,” says Forté. “Auto cycles use sensors to monitor the moisture level of the clothes and end the cycle when it senses they are dry. This prevents over-drying and fabric damage and saves energy. Timed cycles just run for the length of time you have selected.”

Other cycle recommendations

Besides Delicate, Forté also recommends using these three other cycles, depending on the items’ fabric type, construction and how quickly they can be removed from the dryer once the cycle is complete.

Tumble Dry Low

“The main difference between Tumble Dry Low Heat and Delicates is primarily the length of the cycle,” says Forté. “Tumble Dry Low is a longer cycle with low heat, while Delicates is shorter, also with low heat.” Tumble Dry Low is great for sturdier items that can withstand more time in the machine, such as sheets and bedding, casual clothing and jeans.

Refresh

“Sometimes, dryers have a refresh cycle that uses steam to freshen and remove wrinkles and odors from worn garments or those packed in a bag or stuffed in a closet,” says Forté. This is a great setting for clean clothes that need a little pick-me-up.

Extended Tumble

Also referred to as Wrinkle Shield, Wrinkle Guard or Wrinkle Care, this setting is used after the regular dry cycle is over. “The dryer intermittently tumbles the load for one, two, even up to three hours to keep wrinkles from setting in. This is great if you can’t take the load out right away. It’s usually something the consumer needs to select.”

So there you have it. The next time you want your clothes to come out as wrinkle-free as possible, you know what to do.