I have always been given to believe that washing down will make it fall apart. However, I have an enormous comforter that, when I got it, was the fluffiest nicest thing ever. It had a faint pleasant smell of perfume.
Now I’ve had it for a few years, and it isn’t so pleasant. I have hung it outside all day, to no avail. I would really like it to be clean, but I’m afraid that I will destroy the fluffiness.
Does anyone know if and/or how one washes a down comforter? Thanks.
Of course you can but the biggest issue is the washer and dryer loading. Regular washers and dryers can’t handle something like that when it is wet. You have to go to a laundromat and use their commercial washers for a small fee. You also want to minimize detergent as much as possible just because it can strip some of the oil out of the down but common sense should take care of that. I have washed many down comforters over the years as well as down coats. It certainly doesn’t destroy them. You can have them dry cleaned but that is very expensive and probably doesn’t do as good a job as simple washing in a commercial washing machine.
They will last a long time if washed once a year. In Austria, they wrap the top sheet around the corners of the comforter, so they stay together, kind of like this http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3121/2583715539_1a33940729.jpg
after some machine drying, if you do that, you could hang it on a line and beat on it to reloft the fill. people also resort to removable covers to wash that alone.
Thanks, both of you. Those are very good ideas, and I appreciate the picture cause I wasn’t getting it. I am relieved.
There are established methods for washing down sleeping bags available online (REI, backpacker magazine). Never tried it myself, though.
Or throw a few tennis balls or a clean pair of sneakers in the dryer with it to beat and re-fluff the down.
This may work with down but a washer will bunch up regular filler material.
Dry cleaning works well too, if you have that available.
I wouldn’t recommend trying to wash it in a normal washer, from personal experience.:smack: It was my first time ever trying to wash a comforter. I tell ya, there’s nothing quite like the adrenaline rush of trying to mop up all of the overflowing water before your housemates see what kind of hijinks you’ve gotten yourself into now.
Refluffing the down is the biggest challenge. I agree with a clean pair of shoes, or tennis balls, or dryer balls. Take it out frequently and redistribute the load. Do NOT use high heat!
I did ours just yesterday! It’s a king sized all season one, so I washed the top thicker bit and the bottom thinner bit separately. I found that the bigger the washer/dryer, the better it went. (I went to our local coin laundry.) I didn’t have anything to put in the dryer to fluff the down up but it went well anyway. I brought it home and today have hung it outside just to make sure that it is REALLY dry before putting it away. It’s lovely and fluffy again!
Don;'t wash it at all. Try just using some dryer sheets (or one of those special “dry clean in the dryer sheets” along with a few of those nubby rubber balls they sell to use in the dryer. Lowest heat.
I’m a bit surprised to see people here recommending dry cleaning because I was always told that you shouldn’t dry clean anything filled with down. Has anyone else heard this before? Something about the chemicals being bad for the down?
You will want to use cleanser specially formulated for down. Regular detergent can damage the down!
Careful :eek:. You must air it thoroughly before you use it. Dry cleaning solvents are nauseating to sleep with, literally. Here in the UK at least a dry cleaners won’t actually dry clean them at all, they will wet-wash them using a very mild detergent designed for the job.
Ah. Well, to tell you the truth I’m not sure how they treated it, exactly. I just took it in and said “I need this cleaned”, they told me how long it would take (a good week! Is that normal?) and the price. We use the term dry cleaning in a loosely, more describing where we took it rather than the process they did to clean it.
