In the comments of a previous post, I lamented the hidden costs of wool and cashmere sweaters buried in the maintenance problem. You can buy 'em for cheap, but then you have to dry-clean when they're dirty, which, within a couple of years, means about a 500% mark-up on the retail price. In response, one of the commenters helpfully directed my attention to DIY dry-cleaning.
This is not dry-cleaning per se, since it is largely based on soaking the sweaters in water and seems like it wouldn't do much for stains, but my sweaters weren't stained so much as just sweaty, so I figured this method was worth a shot. So I bought a mini bottle of baby shampoo, squeezed some into a huge salad bowl (my sink is too gross for any cleaning to conceivably take place in it), filled it with water, and let my sweaters stew in it like marinating steaks for an hour. Then I toweled them per these instructions, and although drying had to take place on a different towel and took somewhat longer than might be hoped given that my apartment is not only dirty but also freezing, the results look good. The sweaters retained their shape just fine, and no longer smell overworn. Total cost: $2.19, for the baby shampoo. Cheapness success!
My roommate did think this was weird though, so maybe this is one of those thrift achievements not worth bragging about socially.
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5 comments:
hand washing beats dry cleaning any day!
Pretty much all wool can be handwashed, there is also wool detergent, but baby shampoo might be cheaper. Also, many wool sweaters can actually be washed in the washer, on delicate cold water wash in a bag. My mother owns about 100 wool sweaters and she does them all in the washer, even the ones she hand knit, but personally I would hand wash it if I really liked the sweater.
p.s.
If you shrink something you really like, get it wet again and put it on (or find another way of stretching it back to the appropriate size). It is uncomfortable, but it will stretch back to fit you. The texture will be altered however. It will be more felted than before, as even though you can get it back to its original size, you cannot untangle the wool fibers.
The problem with machine washing for me is that I have to pay $3 per load, and so I wash all my stuff together in as large a load as possible to save money. This is not so conducive to the individual needs of sensitive garments. Anything that can't handle warm wash, normal dry doesn't make the cut.
Miss Self-Important,
That does make sense. I was thinking in terms of owning a washing machine (which my mother does though I do not). In terms of paying for laundry, handwashing garments that are "special needs" is usually a better time/money/effort pay off in terms of saving money.
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