The weather is getting warmer, and it's time to wash and put away the coat that I've worn all winter.
I used to send my coat to a dry cleaner. Although it costs hundreds of dollars every year, I feel bad, but there is nothing I can do. It's better than tossing and turning at home and damaging the clothes.
How to wash your coat at home? How can you save money without damaging your coat? I learned how to save money on a coat every year.
1. Why is it not recommended to send it to a dry cleaner?
It's very convenient to send it to a dry cleaner, and you will get a flat, almost new coat, but why is it not recommended to spend this money to send it to a dry cleaner for cleaning? There are three main reasons:
1. The dry cleaner will wash it partially, but it can't wash it clean;
Friends who work part-time at a dry cleaner revealed that when they wash their coats, they often pick out obvious stains for local treatment.
The reason for doing this is, on the one hand, to save the amount of detergent used, and on the other hand, it is also troublesome to deal with the parts washed with detergent. If you wash them all, the workload will increase significantly.
You should have heard from people around you that coats taken back from the laundry sometimes have uneven colors or inconsistent fluff directions. In fact, this is probably because the laundry uses a local cleaning method.
How can a coat that has not been completely cleaned be clean?
2. Dry cleaning agents are very dirty and will damage coats;
Originally, dry cleaning agents are solvents for cleaning clothes. It should be very clean, but why is it said to be dirty?
This is because the dry cleaning agent commonly used in laundries is tetrachloroethylene, which is a recyclable dry cleaning solvent.
In other words, a bucket of solvent is used back and forth, washed by others and then washed by you, and used back and forth. It is very dirty and full of bacteria. The detergent itself is not clean, so it is naturally impossible to guarantee that the washed clothes are clean.
Moreover, tetrachloroethylene, as a powerful degreasing solvent, will dissolve and strip lanolin, which will cause the coat to become hard after washing.
According to the data from the Textile Laboratory of the University of Leeds in the UK, wool coats that have been washed with tetrachloroethylene for a long time will have a 30%-40% decrease in wool resilience.
This will not only affect the softness and comfort of the coat, but also reduce the wearing life of the coat, and will also increase the angle of the wool scale layer, aggravating pilling.
3. Residual smell;
I don't know if you have noticed that the coats taken back from dry cleaning will have a slight smell of petroleum or plastic, which is particularly unpleasant. Even if you smell it more, you will feel like fainting.
This is because dry cleaning agents are left on the clothes. According to laboratory data, 5-10% of the clothes washed with dry cleaning agents will still remain on the fabric after 48 hours.
Some dry cleaners will do additional deodorization treatment, and the smell will dissipate faster, while some dry cleaners will save labor costs and naturally ventilate and dry the smell.
2. Can the coat be washed with water?
The answer is: Yes, but you have to pay attention to the method.
Many coats have a mark that says they cannot be washed, which makes many people mistakenly believe that coats will be damaged once they are stained with water.
However, let's not look inside. Although wool coats are delicate, they are made of wool after all. Wool itself is not afraid of water. Wearing a wool coat and getting wet in the rain will not directly cause the coat to shrink or deform.
The culprit that causes the coat to shrink and deform is not water, but temperature, chemical detergents and mechanical force, especially mechanical force, which is the most fatal.
Therefore, when washing coats, we must pay special attention to these factors and use the correct washing method to ensure that the coat is intact after washing.
3. How to wash your coat at home without damaging it?
If you have a washing machine with a "cashmere/wool wash" program, it will be much simpler.
It will give you control over the temperature and strength, and you only need to add a little cashmere detergent.
If not, you can only wash it by hand!
When washing by hand, please note that each of the following steps is critical:
Step 1: Pretreatment
Mix shampoo or special cashmere detergent with clean water, soak the coat in it for about 15 minutes to give the stains time to soften.
Be careful not to use hot water, which will directly cause the wool to shrink. Use water within 30 degrees, which means that it is not cold when you feel it with your hands.
Step 2: Touch washing
In fact, it is the washing process. In this process, the coat needs to be laid flat, and the washing method simulates the direction of the sheep's wool. "Stroke" in one direction. If you encounter stubborn stains, you can "wash" back and forth in circles.
Avoid the traditional scrubbing method to prevent the coat from being damaged by any external force.
Step 3: Dehydration
After washing, the coat is very heavy and must be dehydrated before it can be air-dried. There are two useful methods for dehydration:
The first is the towel pressure dehydration method. Lay the clean coat flat and then press it gently with a dry bath towel. This can remove moisture without causing external damage to the coat;
The second is to use a washing machine. Although the dehydration mode of the washing machine is relatively strong, we can minimize the damage by shortening the time.
My experience is to dehydrate for 2 minutes. Although it is not dry, it is fine as long as it does not drip and does not damage the clothes and can be air-dried.
Step 4: Air-drying
Everyone knows that woolen clothes should not be exposed to the sun, and the same is true for coats. In addition, lay it flat to dry.
The reason is that the coat is still relatively heavy after washing. If it is hung directly on the hanger, it will produce downward gravity pull. Although it will not be too deformed, it will always affect the version. To be on the safe side, it is better to lay it flat to dry until it is 70% dry before hanging it up to dry.
Coats washed in this way are cleaner than those washed in the laundry, and they do not harm the coats at all.
4. Can coats that have been damaged by washing be saved?
Some people have boldly tried to wash coats, but they may have shrunk and deformed the coats because they did not make a strategy.
To prevent this situation, it is recommended to try using belts, matching cloths, etc. before washing, and then wash the clothes after confirming that there is nothing wrong.
Don't feel bad if the coats have been damaged by washing. Now there is something called shrinkage recovery agent.
Wash shrunken coats and wool sweaters, soak them with it, and then pull and dry them. Although it cannot restore the soft and fluffy state of the newly bought ones, at least the softener and fluffy agent in it can restore the deformed clothes to the normal wearable state.
The main price is not expensive. It is worth trying to save a thousand-yuan garment with a dozen yuan!
5. In addition to washing, how should the coats worn daily be cared for?
Although coats can be washed, it is not recommended to wash them frequently. For daily wear, they still need to be carefully maintained. Here are a few coat maintenance methods that I think are particularly good.
The first one is the vacuum cleaner dust removal method. If you have a vacuum cleaner at home, you can use the brush head that you usually use to vacuum the bed. You will never imagine that it is absolutely amazing when it comes to vacuuming coats.
Not only will the dust on the coat be sucked clean like it has been washed, but the fluff stuck on it will also be sucked clean, and you don't even need a fluff remover. The key is that it is faster than a fluff remover;
The second one is brush + fingernail rubbing, which is particularly effective for felted coats. First, rub it twice in one direction with your fingernails, and then brush it in one direction with a brush. The felted fluff will be combed out immediately, just like new clothes, and the contrast is particularly obvious.
Of course, there are also special wool coat brushes, which are also easy to use, but if you don't have one, you don't need to buy one specifically.
Well, this is the end of the content about coat washing and care in this issue.