Taking care of your prized down product
Should you decide
to hand wash you will truly discover how naturally water repellant modern down
products are. Place your down product in bathtub with cold or lukewarm water
and repeatedly submerge until the entire product is wet through. Add the
appropriate cleaning solution and continue to ‘knee’ dirt out of the product.
Once you’re satisfied that the product has been cleaned properly, proceed to
repeatedly fill the tub with clean water to rinse the product until the water
runs clear.
Should you decide
on machine washing it is very important to set your machine to the lowest
possible spin rate to ensure that you prevent internal damage to your product
as down clumps together when wet and the excessive weight in a particular area
under centrifugal force can cause havoc.
The machine wash
option is however a lot less painful as you simply need to add the appropriate
solution to the main wash cycle holder and set the temperature and spin rate
and the rest will be done for you.
Now for drying…
once again you have 2 options… ‘natural’ or mechanical aid.
In ‘natural’, you
will place the product in a warm and dry area out of direct sunlight. As the
down slowly starts to un-clump, it requires regular light beating/agitation to
ensure that the natural loft is re-established.
This natural
drying process can easily take 2-3 days depending on the temperature and
relative humidity so it would therefore make sense not to attempt this in the
middle of winter.
The use of a
mechanical aid would involve going down to your local laundromat and securing a
large tumble dryer. Be sure to set the dryer on a low temperature - no more
than 30 degrees - and add some ‘beating agents’… tennis balls or sneakers work
well.
Note that this
option certainly is no quick fix so be sure to take along some reading
material.
Now that we’ve given
you the DIY solution, it may be of interest that First Ascent offers a
professional washing solution for your down products at a reasonable rate of
R150 (plus return postage costs if applicable) per item.