The present invention relates a to a method for washing laundry in a laundry washing machine comprising a washing tub external to a rotatable washing drum suited to receive laundry; the method comprises loading laundry into the washing drum and a laundry wetting phase for this laundry. The wetting phase comprises the steps of: —filling the washing tub with a first quantity of clean water at least equal to the quantity of water necessary to wet the loaded laundry completely, so as to obtain the complete wetting of the loaded laundry; —if a quantity of free water is present in the washing tub, externally to the laundry, draining from the washing tub this quantity of free water; —adding a given quantity of detergent to the loaded laundry.
