Washing rayon?

[Alice~]

Does anybody have any advice on getting the "old" smell out of rayon crepe? I haven't taken it to the dry cleaners yet, but I have a feeling the smell will remain. I've been airing it as often as possible, too.

 

[Miss Sis]

I've found washing seems to be the only way to mitigate the 'old' smell that attaches itself to rayon, especially if you give it a dose of fabric softener in the final rinse. Dry Cleaning doesn't seem to help with that.

 

[Idledame]

Anyone else have experience that sometimes wet rayon crepe REALLY smells- a strange unique smell, but the smell lessens as garment dries?

 

[Miss Sis]

Idledame, I think that is old dry cleaning fluid, which seemed to have been much stronger in the old days. I've had that with other items and it's so strong it catches your breath!

I once washed a 30s knit suit and it reeked of a chemical smell so strong I had to put it down and go out of the room for a bit, and I already had the back door and windows open! It smelt fine before I washed it and once it had dried.

 

[Annixter]

Just a noe - the guys have some threads on washing / cleaning ties. There were a lo of rayon -acetate ties made after WWII. You miht do a search for cleaning or washing mens ties.

I was thinking of posting similar before finding your post. For what it's worth, many of us have had success using oxiclean (I use the dollar store cheapo brand) on rayon neck ties with no colorfast issues. I was wary to do so for the longest time, especially because the pH can be as high as 11 according to their website, but some trusted members with huge vintage tie collections talked me into it, and what used to be off-white or cream colors on my rayon ties quickly returned to bright white in a fifteen minute soak.

As for detergents in general, I did a bunch of reading up on the subject regarding washing wool suits by hand, and from what I found, people with supposed backgrounds in textiles and/or chemistry claim that Dawn original liquid dish soap (the blue stuff) is about the best detergent to use with many natural fibers. According to their information, Dawn original has a pH level of around 8, so it's ideal for wool and other animal fibers while other detergents like Woolite can often times be too far on the alkaline side for natural fibers. Rayon requires a pH level of around 8 to 9, so I have mainly used Dawn on my rayon ties with great results for lifting the nasty grease stains most vintage ties possess while having no adverse effect on colorfastness or the rayon itself.

Does anybody have any advice on getting the "old" smell out of rayon crepe? I haven't taken it to the dry cleaners yet, but I have a feeling the smell will remain. I've been airing it as often as possible, too.

You might try a trick we use with beaver-felt hats: place the dress and a number of crumpled up newspaper pages in a trash bag, seal it, and let it rest for a week or so (best to wrap the garment around the cluster of papers). This tends to remove musty and cigarette odors from the hats, and I've had good results doing the same with rayon ties that stink like smoke or funk of some sort. If you are concerned about the newspaper ink transferring, loosely wrap your garment in an airy linen or tissue paper first. Hope that does the trick for you!

 

[John in Covina]

people also use the refrigerator A&H baking soda in the box in the bag with the offending item.

 

[Alice~]

Miss Sis: I'd love nothing more than to give it a thorough clean with water, but I really don't want to risk it with rayon crepe, as I've heard an awful lot of horror stories and have only ever washed plain rayon.

Annixter: Thank you very much - I would never have thought of something like that. And John, if the newspapers don't help, as I seem to use baking soda for every other cleaning task in the world (miracle powder!), I'll give that a try too. Thank you

 

[W-D Forties]

I just had a thought - what about Kitty Litter? It works if you stick it into smelly trainers! I have never tried it with fabrics and obviously wouldn't let it touch the garment, but one of it's main jobs is to absorb odours.

 

[John in Covina]

I just had a thought - what about Kitty Litter? It works if you stick it into smelly trainers! I have never tried it with fabrics and obviously wouldn't let it touch the garment, but one of it's main jobs is to absorb odours.

True but some have scents of their own and many use baking soda as an ingriedient for smell control - I'd say using A&H baking soda such as in the refrigerator oder control box is probably easier and it has a following for such a use on the Lounge.