How to Clean Embellished Clothing

oscars

The 2014 Academy Awards are just four days away! But if this Awards Season has taken its toll on your sequin-adorned, rhinestone-studded, bejewelled and bedazzling party dresses, you’ll need a quick fix if you’re going to have them ready in time your Oscars party.

With a lot of embellished clothing, professional dry cleaning is the first port of call – just send it to LaundryRepublic, and our experienced team will take care of it for you!

But you could always try handwashing at home. Washing embellished clothing at home can seem daunting, particularly if your custom or designer clothing doesn’t come with detailed care labels.

Luckily, we at LaundryRepublic can walk you through how to wash your embellished dresses without losing all the beautiful detailing.

Firstly: make sure you know what you’re dealing with! Identify the material – some fabrics need to be dealt with a little differently. For example, if you’re dealing with a knit rather than woven fabric, make sure you don’t wring, stretch or hang-dry it – you’ll risk losing the shape. If you’re not sure about the material, check the label!

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You’ll also want to check how the embellishments have been attached. Methods can include glue, sewing, rivets or pronged ring settings – often you can tell just by turning the garment inside out to see the stitching, settings or small glue dots that may not be visible on the outside of the garment. If the garment is lined, you can feel the reverse side through the lining with your fingers to determine what application method was used.

If glue has been used, be very careful not to use hot water for washing, as many adhesives can melt. With sewn embellishments, take particular care not to twist or wring the garment, as the tiny threads used to sew beads on could break, which could ruin the design!

The safest way to wash embellished dresses at home, even if they say they’re safe to machine wash, is by hand.

Wash the dress inside out in your kitchen sink, using warm water (remember, not too warm for knits!) and a small amount of mild liquid detergent. Another reason to avoid using hot water is that it can shrink your fabric or soften adhesives, and can ruin the finish on beads.

Rooting for a Brit flick win for 2014!

Rooting for a Brit flick win for 2014!

Don’t soak for more than a few minutes – again, you don’t want to damage the finish on your beads. Gently knead and swirl the garment in the soapy sink water to remove light soiling. For larger garments, you may want to use a bathtub to make rinsing easier!


When your dress is clean, drain the water and press down on the garment with your hands to press most of the water out. There will still be a lot of water in it, but you can cut down the drying time by popping the washed garment into an empty washing machine and use the gentle spin cycle to remove excess water. Don’t do this with velvet, though – it can cause permanent creases in the pile.

Woven fabrics that won’t stretch can then by dried by hanging, somewhere dry or outdoors, away from direct sunlight. For knits and other stretchy materials, lay them out on a flat clean surface, out of direct sun.

If your dress feels a bit stiff after air drying, just put it in a pillowcase and fluff it quickly in the dryer – but make sure you use a low heat, and no more than 5 minutes!

Be very careful when ironing your embellished clothing, and make sure the iron never comes into direct contact with any of your sequins or beads. Professionals use a press cloth to iron embellished clothing, but at home you can just cut a square out of an old t-shirt, and put this between the iron and the clothing. Make sure to select an appropriate heat setting – not too hot for fine silk and polyester. Don’t let the fabric get too hot, or embellishments could soften or crack, and adhesives could melt. If your embellishments are attached with glue, give the garment a couple of minutes to cool after ironing before you move it.

"Thanks to LR's top tips, our pearls have never been pearlier!"

“Thanks to LR’s top tips, our pearls have never been pearlier!”

Now you’re ready to party!

Flickr Photo credits:

nikoretroLiz WestKent CaptureEbbAndFlow

What water temperature should I use?

Checking the care label before washing your garments will save you headaches, but  here’s some general guidelines to keep it simple:

HOT WATER

Use hot water to wash linens and towels, white clothing and gym clothes (regardless of the colour). Hot water is best at removing heavy soil and grime from your clothing. However, it can make your clothes wrinkle and shrink, so don’t use it with coloured clothes as they could fade!

WARM WATER

Most people use warm water for their laundry. It doesn’t have the power of hot water to remove heavy stains, but cleans well and reduces the possibility of fading, wrinkling and shrinking. It is good for most washable fabrics (nylon, polyester, rayon).

COLD WATER

Cold water is good to clean dark and bright coloured clothes, and delicate items. It prevents your clothes from fading, but it’s less efficient for removing stains. If you have heavy stains, you should pre-treat them before washing, wash the load longer or even soaking the item for a few hours in cold water and detergent to ensure a better cleaning.

If you need help decoding laundry symbols: check our basic guide here:
http://bit.ly/16dPKdh

If you don’t want to deal with your laundry chores, why don’t you try our Laundry Service? We’ll care for your clothes, washing, drying and folding everything nicely into a wrapped packaged for you!

How to wash your ski clothing

At LR we know how much fun a week in the mountains can be – beautiful views, great snow, and of course the all-important apres-ski. And we know how important it is to look your best while you’re on the slopes, which is why you need to know how to care for your ski gear.

Ski clothing requires extra care because of the specialised materials used in its construction. Not washing it correctly can result in damage and the loss of the waterproof qualities which are so essential. Always check the care label carefully before cleaning.

If the items are washable, use a cold, delicate cycle with a non-detergent cleaner. Then run another cold cycle, adding a wash-in water repellent to restore the waterproof membrane. Do not use bleach or fabric softener. Rinse twice and tumble dry on a low cycle. Once dry, apply some more waterproofing spray and hang them ready for the next season!

If this all sounds a bit involved, let our expert team take care of it for you. We’re offering 20% off on ski jackets, ski trousers and salopettes until March 15th 2013. Simply enter the code SKI20 in the voucher code box when you place an order at LaundryRepublic.com.

Simplify your laundry!

One of our resolutions for 2013 is to give our customers and followers the best tips to make your laundry easier and more effective. If you’re still one of those people who loves to do your laundry at home (really?) here’s some straightforward advice to help you save time and energy – by sorting your clothes correctly before washing.

First, check the care labels. Put any garments that need special treatment (hand washing, no tumble dry, delicate fabric, etc) in their own pile. For the rest of the laundry, sort it by colour. Make sure that you separate white garments (if you want to keep them white!) from reds and bright colours, as these can leak into the rest of your clothing. In addition, to avoid getting fluff on your garments consider washing towels in a separate load.

Turn all the clothing right side out, unless the label instructs otherwise. Do up all the buttons to avoid damaging other garments and check the pockets – to avoid nasty surprises (like pens), and you may even find some extra cash!

Check each item for stains – to pre-treat them before laundering or clean them further before drying. If not, you risk setting the stain forever. If you find any rips or loose threads, it’s better to fix them before cleaning as it could get worse in the washing machine.

Of course, the LR team is more than happy to help make your laundry easier, simpler and greener – so if all this sounds like a chore, let us take care of it for you!

Decoding Laundry symbols

No one likes doing their laundry – it’s a chore, but it needs to be done (although it’s one that we can make much easier for you!). Knowing what the care symbols mean is a good start – cleaning something in the wrong way or at the wrong temperature can result in disaster.

Here’s a basic guide – we hope it’s useful!

Washing Instructions –

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Bleaching Instructions –

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 Ironing Instructions –

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Tumble Drying instructions

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Dry Cleaning Instructions –

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If the garment is delicate or you are not sure which procedure is best for your clothes, hand it over to our experienced cleaning team for specialist treatment. LR is always happy to help!

Source:  Home Laundering Consultative Council