Need Some Greatcoat Rehab Advice

[Bugbear]

Human shampoo... I get a shampoo that doesn't have most of the weird gunk in regular shampoo, but it also has conditioners in it for PH and so on. Would a bit of this work for hand washing wool? Kind of makes sense.

[Pleater]

It seems to have worked on my stuff for decades - I found out simply because I have a knitting room upstairs and went along to the bathroom to wash the swatches. There was no clothes washing detergent in there so I grabbed the shampoo, and found that the result was better than using the 'proper' stuff.

I am not quite sure about the pH - human shampoo might not be as acid as sheep fleece, but as long as it is rinsed out well it should be fine. I usually rinse until the water is clear - that can be six times.

[James MacMillan]

Ron - This might help.

When I enlisted we were issued the old style "Horse Blanket" overcoat. It was a big monster of a coat. Heavy wool construction, that was phased out long ago.

When we got caught out in the rain, it smelled really bad. What we did to reduce the smell - it never totally went away - was to wear the coats into the shower, and use the cleanest sand that we could find to scrub the coats with. You would take a handfull of sand and scrub it into the fabric and then rince it out. I remember that we didn't use anything else. No soap what-so-ever! Also no hot water.

I don't know if the sand had any great properties, or it was just the agitation of the wool. But we then hung them up to dry.

Seems like a drastic plan now, and if I hadn't done it myself, I would not have passed it along. A side benefit was that the coats also became much softer.

[thescot]

Ron

Try putting one in a duffel bag with some rocks and rolling it down a hill, or drag it behind your car on one of your many off-road excursions. That ought to soften it up a bit. sort of like what I've heard people do with brand new balmorals to get the right look.

Tha's almost exactly what I do with a new balmoral. I rough it up, soak it, and generally give it some "shaping" before I wear it in public. Otherwise, it looks like a characature of Scrooge McDuck, at least on my head.

As to the greatcoat, one reason to think carefully about soaking it in water is that the lining may shrink while the outter material does not. That's one reason some articles of clothing have "dry clean only" tags; the outter and inner material is dissimilar.

If it's rayon or some such, you're probably OK. The tub won't hurt the wool for sure. In fact, that's a very good way to wash a kilt. (OK, let the barrage of dry-clean-only afficionados begin. But there's still no way I'd let a dry cleaner touch one of my kilts.)

[Riverkilt]

Great ideas guys, thanks! So far, I'm hanging in with air. Took both of them out and about this weekend and they seem softer just from the wearing.

The "old smell" seems to transfer to whatever clothes I'm wearing under them - grubbies this weekend so no problem. And, the smell seems to transfer to my skin. Probably need some more work on the insides with the Febreze. Both have rayon-type linings that I can only get the Febreze through sort of.

If I do dunk them its probably gonna be in the tub. Its way toooo cold to shower in cold water this time of year - but that seems a good idea for warmer times.

The acid test; does my bachelor cave stink of the coats when I return? is a no - so it is getting better with air.

Ron

[string]

I would advise Eucalan or Soak woolwash. in a pinch shampoo and dawn detergent work too. Woolite had a lot of build up and crud, it's really meant for carpets, which are no longer made out of wool.

[string]

I know that you might not want to mess with this one but I read in the local paper that the costume department at the opera shpritz musty outfits with vodka to freshen them up.

They used to use gin to dry clean silk, that's why it was so cheap and drank my alcoholic housewives. Oh, and I'm jealous of pleater's knitting room, I need a room for my fiber related hobbies, poor Yeti, he just got a good look at how much yarn I really own. well... most of what I own.