I did this using woolite for gentle fabrics and a soft toothbrush.
It worked great!
For the inner layers, rub the fabric against itself while holding it in the somewhat soapy water and the stains will come right out.
It has been almost a year and my dress still hasn't been cleaned. Should probably do that one of these days myself!
@MrsDulce: thanks for the advice! i am really glad i did this. it worked better than i thought it would.
8 months over here and my dress is as dirty as the way i left it on our wedding day. Def interested in this!
Hi ladies!!
So here is an update: I woke up this morning and the dress was 100% dry! I couldn't believe it. It looks great! The outcome is better than I thought it would be. Here are some photos. Sorry I don't have "before" pictures - it was a spur of a moment thing and it didn't even occur to me to pull out my camera.
Here is the bottom of the dress. It was dark grey before I washed it. Literally. You would never be able to tell right now.
Here is another dirty corner. Again, looks brand new.
And here is the inside, which was organge from all of the bronzer I had on. 95% of that came off. My husband can't believe that it looks so white right now.
I'm not sure how well you can see it on the picture, here is the only stain that did not come off. However, this was the dirtiest part of the dress. It was black. I actually didn't expect it to look half as good as it does right now.
All in all I'm very happy I did this. It looks almost as good as it did on the wedding day and I didn't have to spend a penny.
I read about this in the Bridal Bargains book by Denise and Alan Fields! They said that most bridal shops will wash gowns in the machine on the gentle cycle with some Woolite. I'm glad that your gown came out great--thanks for posting so many great pics. Now this gives me the courage to hand wash my gown too. I'm an August bride and it's going to be hotter than hades, so I'll definitely be sweating, yikes!
was your dress silk or polyester?
i sent one dress to the wedding dress cleaners because i already had the kit to mail it but the other is still in my car. i've been meaning to take it to a local wedding dress cleaner but haven't had a chance. i feel like taking it out of the car and washing it myself but i'm not sure if the material matters.
Looks amazing! Wish I would've done that to mine, instead of having it preserved.
Hmmmm....I think I may try this. My dress is still hanging in the closet and super dirty. And to save all that money! And really if it didn't work I could still take it in to be cleaned.
Thanks for the great idea!
@profiterole--good point! I forgot to say that in the book, they mention that gowns made of polyester can most likely be hand washed. But silk gowns should be sent to a professional cleaner. They also recommend testing some of the beading and pearls. Set one in a cup of cold water to test whether or not it'll dissolve--some of them apparently do!
@mspartridge: Good tip on the beading and pearls. Garment industry secret: a lot of clothes labeled "Dry Clean Only" can actually be safely hand-washed with a gentle hair shampoo! It works well for silk - just be gentle with handling it while it's wet, don't rub or bend the fibers, etc. This is for garments in general, not just wedding gowns. Woolite is also a good option. Garment manufacturers label them Dry Clean Only mainly for liability purposes.
That said, for a wedding gown, I would hand-wash a simple gown, but as franxious points out, if it had a lot of beading, pearls, etc., I'd definitely test one beforehand to see if they hold up to the water, and you'd have to be extremely careful about rubbing the parts where they're sewn on. I do think it's often a better option than gown preservation, though. I'm sure there are some reputable gown preservers out there, but I think a lot of places take your money and do basically nothing. After all, they are boxing up the gown with the intention that you're not going to open it up for several decades, if ever - that creates very tempting conditions for them to cut corners on labor and just take your money, stick your gown in a box and go their merry way. I've heard of people opening their supposedly "preserved" gowns to find them still stained, deteriorating, or maybe even the wrong gown altogether.
@KCKnd2: Yeah, I was talking to my mom and aunts about this recently, they all got their gowns "preserved" but they all still yellowed! I'm not going to bother spending money on it. Just gonna get a bag and hang it in the closet, see how that fairs me! FI's mom did that with her gown, and 30 years later it still looks great!
When I told my DH last night I wanted to do this he looked at me like I had three heads. I told him it is just soap and water and the worse that would happen is the dirt doesn't come out and then we spend the money on cleaning it, but may as well give it a go.
@KCKnd2: Another reason that a lot of things are labeled "dry clean only" is because the fabric the garments are made from aren't prewashed before the pieces of the garments are cut out-- and most fabrics shrink when washed for the first time. So a garment made with non-washed fabric MIGHT shrink when washed, but. . . I've done a lot of handwashing or gentle cycle washing of delicate "dry clean only" clothes and they always come out fine. . .
good to know - My dress is lace and has beading so I will get one of our friends who own a dry cleaners to do it for me. They did my FSIL's dress it came out beautiful!
@profiterole: mine is polyester. I think that it would have been much harder to hand wash if it was silk because of its weight.
@mspartridge: I was going to do that, but I ended up hanging it on a hanger - not by the straps though. I didn't want to stretch them out. I actually never cut out one of the straps that is inside of the dress used for the henging and on the other side of it I had a tag with the name of the designer. So I ended up using the hanger that has those clamp things and attached the designer tag to one end and that inside strap to the other. It dried over night. It was great.
My dress has a lot of beading - my entire train is beaded and nothing fell off or disolved. But I was really lucky with that, because I had no idea that is even possible!
I just did the same thing and it worked out fine! The dress was a sample so i didnt want to pay anything to get it cleaned! It was 100% silk with lace and beading overlay and i just gently washed it with oxyclean then rinsed with a little hair conditioner.. Looks brand new!!
Thanks for all the great comments and suggestions! I'm definitely going to try hand washing my gown after the wedding. That'll save me a couple hundred bucks on dry cleaning, plus avoiding the scary risk that the cleaners may wreck the gown.
Hey all,
I dried mine on a cheapy drying rack with a white towel draped over it. I was able to reshape the train that way and keep the weight off the dress.
Mine was poly but it was incredibly heavy...it was a stiffer fabric with no embellishments so laying it flat also helped keep the wrinkles out!
Am I the only one wondering what happens to these water-soluble pearls if it rains?!
Wow this is incredible !!!!! Has anyone tried this on organza ?
@aprilbee11 did you put your whole gown in the tub at once? Or did you wash and dry it in parts ? How did you dry it ?
Awesome! My dress is still hanging in my closet dirty. I think I'm gonna grab some woolite and get to washing myself!
@nativedesires: I tried to do it in sections, but it became very difficult. I first washed the bodice and then the skirt. If I remember correctly, however, the entire dress was under water at one point. As far as drying goes I first let the water drain a little bit by leaving the skirt in the tub and the bodice outside the tub (I put towels on the floor). I would pick up the dress every now and then to let the water drip down. After a few hours I just hung it up in my bathroom from the shower rod. It dried very fast. But i think that's because of the material of the dress. Good luck!!
I just hand-washed my wedding dress in the bathtub with laundry detergent, baking soda, and a soft tooth brush. It turned out lovely!
You must log in to post.
| User | Posts Today |
|---|---|
| AlwaysSunny | 27 |
| renierose | 13 |
| This Time Round | 12 |
| CaliBeeBride0813 | 9 |
| rusticbee2014 | 9 |
| TakeTwo | 7 |
| julies1949 | 6 |
| dannielle89 | 6 |
| netsta | 6 |
| sablemuse | 6 |
| User | Posts Today |
|---|---|
| AlwaysSunny | 3 |
| Joynson | 2 |
| aussiebride26 | 2 |
| cece_intheuk | 2 |
| rebeccamariebryan | 2 |
| pivoine | 2 |
| betty1989 | 2 |
| kaylee26 | 1 |
| MrsPaulsBabyBallerina | 1 |
| This Time Round | 1 |
So....I did the unthinkable! I was cleaning today and when I opened the closet and saw my dress still untouched I grabbed it, threw it in the tub, poured a bunch of Tide on it and here it is!!
So far I've refilled the tub twice after thorough handwashing and everything seems to be coming off very well. The only stains I haven't been able to take off are on the inner layers. I really didn't want to pay all that money to clean a dress I wasn't going to wear again so I figured I'll give it a try. I'll let you know how it turns out, but so far so good! Although I wish I took photos of it before washing it so I could show the "before" and "after :/