I only have two pairs of work pants.

May 14, 2008 10:34 AM

Can I wash this? I have a ladies suit, 60 linen/40 silk with poly lining. The tag of course says dry clean only, but is there a valid reason for that? I would like to wash the pants in cold/cold water on the handwash cycle of my frontloader. The jacket will go to the cleaners as needed. Chances of success?
posted by Talia Devane to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (10 answers total)

Cleaning them separately like that will almost certainly cause changes in the color so that they may no longer match well. Spot-cleaning the pants and freshening them with a steamer and sending both pieces to the cleaners at the same time will probably work better.
posted by crush-onastick at 10:37 AM on May 14, 2008

As crush-onastick noted, I would not clean separately what is meant to be worn together.
posted by oddman at 11:12 AM on May 14, 2008

I don't dry clean things.

I've had this situation before where I washed similar pants. They shrank so much lengthwise that the lining was hanging out several inches below the pants. Bubbye.

Unfortunately, it's kind of a crapshoot. More times than not, in my experience, there's no problem whatsoever machine washing pants. Jackets are different, in that you will lose the shape if you machine wash them.

I agree that the separate cleaning plan is likely to mess with the coloring eventually.

So yeah, this might be a dry cleaner situation.
posted by Stewriffic at 11:15 AM on May 14, 2008

Why not use one of those dry-clean-at-home products like Dry Cleaner's Secret or Dryel? That saves on the cost and inconvenience of the actual dry cleaners, and you can put them both in together. You just need to spot-clean any marks and pop them both in the tumble dryer.
posted by Joh at 11:24 AM on May 14, 2008

I hate dry cleaners and wash nearly everything at home but this sounds like you'll need to bring in, for all the reasons mentioned above. If the jacket weren't super constructed and fitted and didn't have a lining, I'd wash both at home but I don' think that'll work in this instance.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 11:35 AM on May 14, 2008

Nthing Dryel. Weird, and kind of stinky, but it works.
posted by Capri at 11:39 AM on May 14, 2008

Linen and silk? I would not immerse this garment in water. It can affect the sizing and fabric appearance. It might not with yours but you take a risk. As for Dryel, I would do some research, but I think CR or some other folks have determined that it essentially does nothing but add fragrance.
posted by caddis at 12:04 PM on May 14, 2008

I regularly wash both my suit pants and jacket with the rest of my washing in a frontloader. I then turn them inside out to iron it, and it looks perfectly fine. It is, however, a navy blue suit, so any discolouration is not noticeable. I would only try this with something delicate like a silk blend if I could bear the loss of it.
posted by tomble at 5:08 PM on May 14, 2008

This suit is likely to shrink (probability quite high) and/or to stain (silk stains quite badly when it comes in contact with water, so not sure how a linen/silk mixture would be affacted). I'd have the items dry cleaned together by a professional firm.
posted by Susurration at 6:01 PM on May 14, 2008

Seconding caddis. Linen and silk will shrink dramatically when immersed in water. I know, I made this mistake myself. Cool flowy summer slacks became... sausage ass-pants!

Think you gotta suck up the drycleaning fees on this one.
posted by GardenGal at 7:06 PM on May 14, 2008