Gray Cat Vintage: Clothing

I have had people ask me before how I care for and clean my vintage clothing. When I tell them I use dish soap they just are like, "huh? what? why?" Well, I have found that this is the best way to actually get a garment really clean.

Clothes washing soap (both powder and liquid) do not form suds like dish soap does. They do not bubble up as much because obviously you would have a disaster like this:

Ok this is NOT my washer, but if you WERE to put dish soap into your washing machine, this would happen. Because of this, clothes washing soap and liquid is heavily scented to mask any odors that do not come out of clothing in the wash. Newer deodorants, I have found, are very difficult to wash out of clothing on a cold cycle. Same holds true for liquid cosmetics, lip gloss, body glitter, indoor tanning lotion, etc. In recent years I have found a lot of vintage dresses that have been used by young females for "themed" parties and proms and they tend to have the above mentioned items on the clothing. Most people today have "energy star" rated washers too. What this means is that they use a lot less water than washers made 20-30 years ago and the result is that you cannot actually fill a washer to full capacity and clothes do not get as clean as they do in a vintage washer (depending on how full the washer is with the clothes to water ratio).

Now, what does this have to do with vintage clothing? The vast majority of my vintage clothes are made from polyester. Polyester is entirely synthetic so it is a plastic in a sense. Polyester is also like a sponge that will soak up anything you have on your skin as well as anything else you come into contact with - even other smells like mothballs or cigarettes. When I first started selling vintage clothes, there were some really nice pieces that were either badly stained or had atrocious smells. I would wash them in the washer with liquid soap on cold or medium heated water (never hot, it can damage the seam stitching). Sometimes even after 2 washes they would STILL smell or have stains. Why? I had no idea. I would even SOAK items for hours and then wash and they would not be clean.

This lead me to using dish detergent. Dish detergent has a degreasing agent in it. This is what will remove the cooked off food mess from your dishes. This came to me when I had a vintage reversible coat that would not come clean. The coat was polyester, and it was quilted so it had filler inside. It not only was in the most mothball saturated closet in history for years before I bought it, but one one side of the coat (which was cream colored) it had a brownish splatter stain that to me looked like motor oil. After two washes in the machine you could STILL smell mothball AND the stains were basically untouched. I even pretreated the stains with Shout in the second wash with no change. So, about to give up and pitch the coat, I filled up the kitchen sink with cool water and dish soap and plopped the coat in. I also pretreated the stains with some more dish soap.

That water was the grossest brown color in a matter of 10 minutes! Even after 2 washes in the machine. The problem was just the greasy stain on the coat would not come out with the washing soap. The dish soap not only got the stains totally out, but it eliminated all the mothball smell. From this point on, almost everything is washed or prewashed in dish soap if it is super smelly or has questionable stains. The glory about this is that dish soap will work just fine in cold water. I have found that clothes washing liquid does not do as well UNLESS you get specific cold water wash liquid that is like $3 more than the regular and the bottle is smaller. I use generic dish soap from Target and it works great (I like the apple scent).

Now, if the clothes are machine washable and they are just smelly (almost all vintage clothes will have some kind of smell and will need to be cleaned) just put them in the washing machine and wash them with whatever wash soap you prefer. They will turn out great! If the clothes are "problematic" I suggest you try dish soap. :)

Here are a few tips I use every day!

For stubborn stains I use the dish soap and sometimes use a MEDIUM bristle tooth brush in a circular motion. I first try this on the UNDERSIDE of the fabric (even if you cannot see the stain on the inside of the garment) because this can prevent fading or little "pills or balls" appearing on the fabric.

Heavy Duty Goof Off (in the metal can) will get permanent marker out of polyester jerseys - especially "puck scuffs" from hockey jerseys. I have found that for the most part, Goof Off will not take the color out of the fabric, just the stain. This product will also get sticker residue off of jeans. It will remove chewing gum too, but not as easily as with sticker residue.

Arm Pit Stains: I have yet to find out how to completely remove these but this seems to help:
1 tsp Dawn or other dish detergent
4 tbsp peroxide
2 tbsp Baking soda
This makes a pasty mix that you can scrub on with a tooth brush then leave it on for a while then rinse out.

You CAN hand wash Merino wool and cashmere sweaters as long as you DO NOT pull, twist, or wring it out. I wash my sweaters in cold water with dish soap then lay it flat on the bottom of the bathtub and let the shower rinse it out. I then take a bath towel, lay it on the floor, and put the sweater on it. I then roll this up and squish it to get the water out of the sweater. You will saturate 2-3 bath towels this way, but just hang them up and then they dry and can go back in the cabinet AND since almost all the water is out of the sweater it will not stretch or deform. I wait until it is completely dry before I put it back on a hanger to avoid "hanger shoulders".

If you have a garment (usually a sweater) that has a color that runs (probably red) you can hand wash it and then after you rinse it out, let it sit in a sink with ice water (you really need to use ice) so that the color will re-set. Then use the above mentioned towel method and it will prevent color bleeding (I discovered this when washing Christmas sweaters).

You can use a shoeshine brush (unused obviously) to brush and fluff fur coats and this does not pull or tug on the fur.

You can use vinegar mixed in water instead of fabric softener. I am personally allergic to fabric softener and it has SUCH a strong smell that a lot of people find to be "perfumy".

You can also do a "vinegar steam" to get cigarette smoke stench out of clothing! Fill the tub with about 1 inch of the hottest water you can run. Dump in 3-4 cups of vinegar. The vinegar vapors will be STRONG so keep the bathroom door shut or your whole house will smell like it was pickled. Hang the clothing on a rack or cord above the water in the tub (I use a shower tension rod I can remove to hang in the center of the bath tub) and hang the clothes on hangers from this. The steam from the water will permeate the clothing and neutralize the cigarette smell. You need to let the steam process work for about 2 hours for best results. This works well for coats and things that cannot really be washed (like wool pea coats and embellished sweaters). If the clothes smell like vinegar, just hang it outside for a bit and it will go away.

You can use a blow dryer set on hot to remove "dents" or impressions in leather and patent leather.

Last year for my birthday my boyfriend got me the BEST gift EVER - and by that I mean he really thought about this and how I would use it and it really changed how I do business. He got me a EZCube light kit. The kit had two different sizes of soft boxes, 3 studio lights, and accessories for photographing jewelry. With the soft boxes I am able to make small items look like gallery art and the lights can be used with or without the boxes to create professional looking photographs.

Now, I have an extensive photography history dating back to high school, so I have/had an idea of what to do with lighting already. But the kit makes everything so easy anyone can do it. To illustrate the difference this is a picture taken in my office with sunlight passing through the curtains. Now, the curtain I have up casts a peach sheen into the room and no matter what setting I changed on my camera, it still picked it up. If there is no sun and I must use an overhead light, it will generally look "off" when photographing clothing.

This is a picture taken with all 3 studio lights set up. There is a halo light, a small light with diffuser, and a large light with a diffuser. If my office was wider, I would be able to put the lights in ideal areas - but with low ceilings and not a lot of room I was somewhat pleased with how these turned out. As you can see, the weird sheen from the curtain is avoided and you can see where the lights are positioned by the shadows on the wall. The studio lighting also picks up true colors MUCH better - especially noticeable in the pic of the kimono where it has a black background and multicolored neon flowers. BUT - I was not liking the shadows AT ALL. I did not like that is looked like "museum" lighting since such lighting would be more appropriate for a vase or lamp. So....onto the third lighting set up.

I removed the halo light since it was causing the gray cast in the upper left hand corner. I also lowered the two cube lights with the diffuser covers to the floor and pointed them upwards. I put "daylight" swirl bulbs in the ceiling light and turned that on - as well as removed the curtains completely from the windows on a sunny day. As you can see now, all that light has allowed for a white background, solid colors, good contrast, saturation, and realistic in terms of actual colors.