In my fit of love for Dryel, I apparently forgot to actually dry clean my lovely cashmere and wool sweaters at the end of last season. And, to my great pissed-offness, I had moth holes in nearly every one. Last year it happened, but I didn’t even make an attempt to store them properly. This year I sewed little cedar satchets and put them in plastic zip up bags. My tailor admonished me and is mending them all now, but I don’t really know what to do going forward. I’ve read all the advice on the planet and everything contradicts itself Actually drycleaning them makes them a little rough and isn’t good for their longevity, right? It doesn’t need to be done every time I wear them, but how often should it be done? And handwashing? I’ve successfully handwashed them before but it’s a huge PITA. Maybe I just need to suck it up and do it.
I’ve read all manner of advice for storing them: freeze them and then store them in a “breathable” material (what does that even MEAN?), store them with cedar, blah blah blah.
Handwashing is irritating as all get-out. It takes FOREVER. Which detergent to use - is Woolite even more gentle than a regular detergent? Should I use some liquid Dr. Bronner’s? This Euclan stuff sounds good, but is it really okay to have lavender and lanolin in your shit? Euclan says for dry clean only stuff to use a “Wet Cleaner.” WTF is a wet cleaner?
Can I use a gentle cycle with a front-loading washing machine? Seems the one wool sweater (in a mesh bag, on cold and delicate) didn’t take kindly to the actual agitator in my SO’s mom’s house. My cashmere has been fine in gentle front-loader cycles, but I only have access to one rarely at my parents’ house (or at the laundromat, if I go down that road). Mesh bag or not?
And the most important question is how OFTEN should I be cleaning my dry clean/ dry clean only sweaters? I’m wearing it all day (to work and back) and sweating a bit. Steam in the bathroom with the hot shower running? Wash or dry clean every 3rd round? Is Dryel totally worthless for cleaning and only helpful for steaming/getting out the disgusting smoke from the addicts that billows towards me as I exit the building every day?
If people can’t smell you whilst standing next to you, then you should be fine not dry cleaning until they can.
Ok, serious answer, use the mesh bag and do it yourself on the lightest cycle you have on your washer. We’ve never drycleaned any of our wool sweaters or cashmere, they get washed in a silk mesh bag and air dry.
There was a dry cleaners near my parents’ house that would dryclean clothes by the pound, which was cheaper than by the piece. I think they usually took stuff like sweaters there to be cleaned. Mostly stuff that didn’t need pressing after.
When I was doing a show a few years back, the costume people cleaned the costumes (and my tux) with poor man’s Febreze. It was a weak mixture of water and vodka in a spritz bottle.
I was a little leary of them spraying my tux with it, but I figured since they were MIT students they got all sciency about it.
tdn, that sounds awesome (for the price) and I’ve read it elsewhere, but no evidence that it cleans, sadly.
Dewey, that’s a great idea, but I’ve had truly abominable experiences with drycleaners as of late. One way overcharged me, one broke a button on the SO’s burberry trench (and didn’t offer to replace it, and had a policy stating buttons aren’t their effing fault) and one (my beloved tailor) is only doing tailoring and not cleaning anymore, because he’s like eighty million years old.
Phlosphr, do you have a link to a silk bag? I’ve been using a pretty rough mesh one, so the abrasion can’t be good. Do you recommend inside out to avoid piling?
I maintain my cashmere sweaters by always wearing another shirt under them (one that protects them from my armpits, mostly), using Dryel on them during the season when they need it, and either hand washing or dry cleaning before I pack them away at the end of the season. When I remember, I wear an apron while I cook.
Hand-washing is definitely better for them than dry-cleaning, but dry-cleaning is majorly less of PITA and they steam the sweater for you, so it looks good, which isn’t a guaranteed outcome of hand washing (for which you’ve gotta know a bit about blocking and steaming).
I have never found a way to wash a cashmere sweater in the machine and not fuzz it up. You might get away with it, on a plain-knit lightweight sweater. Don’t even think about trying it on a heavyweight sweater, or one with stitch details.
Over the summer I store them in a plastic tub with a locking lid, with a handful of mothballs at the top. The mothballs will kill any moth grubs and eggs in your clothes, and prevent new ones from getting in. When the weather gets cold again, just air the sweaters for a few days before wearing, tada!
I’ve never messed with cedar or lavender or other herbal moth repellants. My cashmere means too much to me.
Sattua, do you have any thin shirt recommendations? I can’t seem to find any super thin shirts to wear under my sweaters. If I did, well, I’d be the luckiest girl at the ball.
In very cold weather, silk long underwear works well. I usually buy plain tshirts from Old Navy or the teenybopper stores like Wet Seal–they’ll often sell “layering” tshirts that are made of very thin fabric, or shirts that are just cheap and flimsy and (if you’re lucky) don’t even have any sewn hems to cause lumps under the sweater.
Mostly, I avoid buying such garments in the first place. One of my rules for living is that if I can’t throw it in the washer or dishwasher, it’s too high maintenance for me to live with. Very occasionally, I’ll find something that looks and feels so great that I’ll break my rule, and then I regret it.
I live in Texas. Even in North Texas, we generally don’t have enough cold weather to justify wearing sweaters as inside clothing. If I lived in a colder climate, I might consider actually getting and wearing sweaters or other garments that are dry clean only. But I don’t, and so I don’t purchase the things in the first place.
If I have to hand wash something, generally I just add some Ivory dish soap to lukewarm water and let the garment soak for a couple of hours, swishing it a couple of times now and then. Drain, and rinse a couple of times. It’s VERY important to use plenty of water, and very important to rinse at least twice. My daughter, when she started buying at least some of her own clothes, enjoyed getting these high maintenance garments. Until I made it clear that I wasn’t going to hand wash them or run them to the dry cleaners…if she wanted to wear them, she had to take care of them. And that’s how I taught her to hand wash stuff. I have a big plastic utility bucket that I use for things like this.
PS: Eucalan is great stuff for washing wool… all the ladies who write knitting blogs use it to wash their finished sweaters in preparation for blocking. I wouldn’t worry about the scent at all.
You sound just like my mom :). The problem with wool is that it shrinks when it undergoes temperature changes so I’ve read. So the good part of Eucalan is that you don’t do a rinse, or you do just one rinse (and have two buckets from the same temp water at the ready). It just goes against what I know to not rinse.
Sattua, then I’ll go with Eucalan. Some of the sweaters are superthin wool (not making that mistake again!) and I think they need the extra moth protection, since they were eaten up way more than the cashmere. (Also of note - my cheapo cashmere they ate, but my really nice cashmere they didn’t touch. All stored the same way. Very strange.)
