What is the best way to clean a wool hat? It’s a difficult question with a variety of responses, some of which are excellent and others which are less so. Its critical to treat the hat with care. It’s best not to handle your wool felt fedora by its crown; instead, grab it at its front and back brims to avoid damaging the shape of the crown. Grab the peak of your cap if you have a flat cap.Whether you are hand washing or not, try to be as gentle as possible with your hat because a wool hat can be easily ruined by aggressive or abrasive cleaning methods as wellas chemicals.
You’ll Need a Few Things
- A “gentle” setting on the washing machine.
- Detergent for wool that is mild in nature
- Drying rack (or a towel)
Wool Caps Should Be Hand-Washed
- Fill a sink halfway with cool or lukewarm water and start washing hats by hand there. If you use hot water, the hat will shrink, so avoid doing so.
- Add a mild detergent made specifically for wool, your favorite unscented, gentle detergent, or even shampoo to the wash cycle and rinse thoroughly. Shampoo may be used to wash wool because it is made from the hair of an animal, which is why it is called “wool.” A mild baby shampoo is an excellent choice for cleaning wool. To create suds, gently agitate the water with your hand.
- To absorb and release the water from your hat, submerge it in it and squeeze it gently several times. Allow for approximately 5 minutes of soaking time before proceeding. The hat may need to be washed more than once if it is particularly filthy.
- The wash water should be drained away. Prepare a fresh supply of cool water in the sink. Submerge the hat in the wash water and gently squeeze it to remove the soapy residue from it.
- Dry it flat on a towel after it has been steamed. Alternatively, if the hat is not too heavy, you can use a drying rack to hang it. Using your hands, do not squeeze the water out.
Washing in a machine is recommended
- Hand wash or machine wash a wool hat in cold water on the gentle/delicate cycle with a mild detergent and a softening agent.
- If your machine has a slower spin cycle option, use it instead. Lay them flat to dry instead of spinning them if your hats are made entirely of pure wool and you are apprehensive about spinning. Avoid wringing out your headgear before hanging it to dry in the sun or in the shade.
Tip
Wool baseball caps should not be washed in a machine because of the wool content. After some wear and tear, a baseball cap will conform to your head’s shape, but it will shrink slightly during the drying procedure. If this is a concern for you, consider wearing it while it dries, as it will dry to the proper shape and size once it has dried completely.
Hats Made of Wool That Are Drying
- In order to soak up as much water as possible, roll the hat in a towel first
To remove most of the water from the hat, wrap it tightly in a clean, dark towel.
- Ensure that the hat is laid flat on a clean surface before putting it on
It is never recommended to dry wool hats in a dryer because the hat will shrink significantly and may even be completely destroyed by the process. Make a clean surface available for laying the hat out and allowing it to dry naturally. Turn the hat inside out at a certain period so the underside inside may soak out if needed, and then put it back inside out. For a while, you can wear sock hats inside out.
Using a fan, circulate air around your hat to keep it cool. If you use a hair dryer, you can dry your hat more quickly and without causing damage to it.
- Hang the hat from a clothesline or a hanger if you want to be extra creative
Alternatively, you can choose to hang the hat instead of drying it flat on a rack or table. Using a safety pin or a hanger, you can drape the hat from such a laundry to dry.You could also experiment with hanging the hat from a doorknob with a coat hanger attached.
- Keep the hat on until the water is completely soaked out of it
In some cases, the drying process of wool can cause the hat to lose its original shape. The hat will mold to the contour of your head if you wear it for a long enough period of time to allow it to dry completely on your head. In order to keep the hat’s shape, you can also set it on an uptrend bowl, a tea container, of some kind that is circular.
- Before the hat is completely dry, reshape it
You can scoop it away into the desired shape if you gone the hold lying around it or holding to dry while you were working on something else.If it gets dry entirely even while flat, that might not be able to be reshaped as in way in which you want it to.However, baseball hats or other structured wool hats will retain their shape, so this is mostly applicable to the floppy socks hats that are popular right now.
It is not recommended to use bleach on wool fibers, even if you have a white cap in your hand. However, contrary to popular belief, bleach is an excellent stain remover; however, according to research, its sodium hypochlorite compounds can attack fine wool fibers, resulting in yellowish, irreversible discoloration.