Wool is naturally self-cleaning, the outer surfaces of the fibre pushing dirt down and off itself. It's naturally anti-bacterial and neutralises odours too. Silk also releases dirt easily, so after wearing, the best thing to do is to hang your silk/wool clothing to air rather than wash.
Living Crafts' wool/silk fabric is a soft, natural fabric that can be gently machine washed on a 30oc wool cycle, or hand washed, at temperatures up to 30oc.
Use a detergent designed for wool and silks which is gentle, and which protects and repenishes wool's natural oils. We recommend one of our liquid wool shampoos in our fabric care section here.
Wool cycles maintain a constant luke-warm temperature throughout the wash and rinse cycles, so as not to "shock" the wool into felting.
To hand-wash your wool silk fabric, dilute your wool detergent in cool water, max 30oc (luke-warm only, should feel coolish), in a bowl. For heavily-soiled areas, use a little gall soap beforehand, testing on an inconspicuous area first.
Add your wool/silk clothing to the bowl, gently stirring and squeezing the detergent through. Rinse using water at the same temperature, otherwise the wool will be subjected to "shock" and might felt up. So luke-warm/coolish at 30oc again.
Things not to do! Don't wring, soak, brush or rub vigourously as the wool and silk fibres may be damaged and your garment felt up a little and shrink. Just squeeze the water through.
To dry your wool/silk clothes, gently squeeze water out and wrap them clothes in a towel to remove the excess water. Air-dry naturally avoiding direct heat. So, hanging on a drying rack over the bath is good, or on a clothes horse. Mine often end up over the back of chairs or on the washing line in the shade (I haven't had a problem with the the heat of the English being too hot, yet, but direct sunlight is not good for wool or silk).
Re-shape while still damp.
baby
