To avoid the hassle, most people take their suits to the dry cleaners to be cleaned. Here, however, you will find not one, but three methods for safely and efficiently washing your suit at home.
How Do You Know If Your Suit Can Be Dry Cleaned?
Type of Fabric
Finding out what kind of cloth your suit is made from is the first step. The most prevalent suit fabrics are wool, linen, and tweed. Because of its crisp, not-easily-crumpled appearance, it is an excellent choice for a business professional’s wardrobe.
Once you know what kind of fabric you’re working with, you can select the best method. Wool and cotton, for instance, require more careful washing to prevent felting. Tweed, on the other hand, is more tightly woven at the thread level.
Dye Test
To check the quality of your suit’s fabric, get a cotton swab and locate a discreet area to test it. You can do a test run with your chosen cleaning product, be it liquid detergent or dry-cleaning spray.
Any negative reactions, such as dye seeping through the suit, indicate that your product is not suitable for the fabric. Don’t risk ruining the clothing by cleaning it yourself; take it instead to a reliable dry cleaner.
If your suit does not react to the product you’ve selected, however, you can try one of the following three options.
What’s the Best Way to Clean a Suit at Home? (Step-By-Step Dry Cleaning)
Sending your suit out for weekly dry cleaning can add up in both money and time spent waiting for it to be returned. But you can dry-clean your suit at home without worrying about damaging it by using a dry-cleaning spray and a steam iron.
It’s recommended that you perform all of this while the suit is hanging. It’s for the sake of cleanliness and maintaining the garment’s original form.
Instructions:
You should begin by spot cleaning your suit, just as you would at a dry cleaner. Before you dry clean a garment, you should remove any stains or stubborn dirt.
The next step is to apply a lint remover on the suit to get rid of any lingering dust, hair, or threads. A lint roller or gentle adhesive tape will work for this step.
Try spraying this dry cleaning fluid to test if it works. Find a ‘hidden place’ and apply a small amount of dry-cleaning fluid to it. If after 5-10 minutes the cloth hasn’t shown any signs of reactivity, you can move on to the next step. If the dry-cleaning fluid caused a reaction on your suit, try one of the other options provided below instead.
You can spray the dry-cleaning fluid all over your suit if it passes the fluid test. Make sure all of the areas are covered, including the insides of the pockets.
The suit can then be pressed using a steam iron. It is possible to use an iron, but doing so is more difficult and could produce unsightly wrinkles.
You may have noticed that there is no dry procedure in these instructions. The dry-cleaning spray dries quickly and doesn’t require drying.
Keep in mind that dry-cleaning sprays, if left on your suits for an extended period of time, might cause permanent harm. However, if you need a quick method of cleaning your garments, this is a fantastic approach to use.
How Do You Use A Washing Machine To Clean Your Suit?
Instead of using harsh dry-cleaning chemicals, you can give your suit a gentle wash in the washing machine.
Instructions:
Flip your blazers inside out and fold the sleeves in toward the body. Then turn your suit inside out all the way. When washing your pants, flip them inside out.
Lay the clothes flat and tightly roll them up. Then you can use a safety pin to make sure it stays closed. You can use a few of them; just make sure they’re not too big and shred the fabric.
Roll up your suit and put it in a laundry mesh bag. Multiple items of clothing can be stored in a single bag.
After placing the garments in the mesh bag, roll them up and fasten them with a safety pin.
Afterward, wash the suit with a gentle detergent. For a complete suit, including pants or skirt, there should be about 1 tbsp.
Choosing the right washer is the next step. Use the gentle cycle, if your washing machine has one. It comes under many names, including:
- Gentle wash
- Delicate wash
- Hand Wash
As soon as the suit’s washing cycle is complete, take it out and roll it out on a dry towel. In order to preserve the garment’s shape, you should lay it flat.
You should let the towel absorb the water before drying it. Depending on your preference, you can lay it flat or hang it to dry.
That’s it! Your suit has been laundered and is now clean. Having trouble carrying out these steps?
How Do You Hand Wash A Suit At Home?
One may be surprised to learn that hand washing is more difficult than using a washing machine. The end product isn’t as spotless as you’d hope, and drying time can be longer. However, just a few people own a washing machine and can dry-clean their suit at home.
Instructions:
Spot cleaning and lint removal come first, like they do in the other methods.
Turn the garment inside out by folding the sleeves in toward the body.
When you’ve got the suit folded the right way, roll it up tight and pin it. In this phase, a mesh laundry bag is optional since the suit cannot be washed in a washing machine’s spin cycle.
Fill a sink with one spoonful of the gentle detergent you’ve chosen. The suit should be soaked.
Apply light pressure to the suit. Squeezing it too tightly will cause wrinkles.
Final step: fold it up in a towel to dry.
As you can see, the coverage for hand washing your suit is quite restricted. The absence of a washing machine or dry-cleaning spray is not a problem, though, because this method is available as a backup.
What Is The Best Suit Drying Method?
If you want to dry your suit quickly and efficiently, lay it down flat and keep it out of the sun. Because the UV radiation is not directly reaching the cloth, the color will not fade. The suit’s shape can then be preserved by laying it flat.
There is, however, one major drawback to this approach, and that is the significantly longer time required to dry the suit. In order for this to work, you need to be in a very humid or very hot environment.
Suits lose their form over time if hung up to dry. Hanging damp clothing more than once won’t ruin it immediately, but it will wear it out faster in the long run. Gravity and the weight of the water are to blame for this.
The suit’s dye may fade if it is hung or laid flat in direct sunlight. Consequently, spreading it out in the shade to dry is the most effective method.
Useful Tips on How to Wash Your Suit at Home
Use Gentle Solvents
Instead of harsh chemicals, use gentle solvents when dry-cleaning. Even though they are manufactured with the intention of cleaning suits, gentler variants can be found from various manufacturers.
Avoid the Heat and Sunlight
The sun and heat can quickly age and discolor your suit. Keep it away from sources of heat and ultraviolet radiation to preserve its quality.
To Avoid Damage, Avoid Harsh Cleaners
It’s not recommended to use harsh detergents on a suit. It will ruin the fabric as well as the dye and color on your clothes. So, use only a tiny bit and select detergents that are gentle on the clothes.
How Often Should You Wash Your Suit?
Store Your Suit Properly
A clean suit can be maintained with the help of careful storage. The item of clothing is less likely to be worn; therefore it will spend more time folded neatly in your closet.
A suit can be worn more than once before needing to be washed if it is kept in a dry, dark place. Don’t forget to store it in a suit bag to avoid dust accumulation!
Spot-Clean
Suits are the go-to attire for most formal occasions. It’s a piece of clothing that doesn’t become dirty very often.
Because of this, there is less of a need to clean it after each use than you might expect. You can save time by only washing the sections of your outfit that need it.
Use A Suit Brush
Maintenance with a suit brush is as effective as spot cleaning. Most of the dirt and dust you could pick up while wearing it can be easily removed. With the help of the suit brush, you may reduce the frequency with which you have to wash your suit.
