Caring for Down Items

Have you become the happy owner of an item made of real down? Congratulations! And we hasten to tell you how to care properly for this soft and warm gold so that it serves you as long as possible.

Storage

Let us say straight away: a down item is undemanding in both care and storage. In the warm season, in summer, it is enough to treat it with any moth-repellent aerosol, fold it neatly and put it away in the wardrobe. My grandmother also took down items out from time to time in summer and aired them, but this is not at all necessary – the treatment is enough.

How often to wash

A down item should be washed no more than once a year – and that is with constant wear. If you wear it only on occasion, even less often.

Washing

Immerse the item in warm water no hotter than 40 degrees and wash it with any hair shampoo. Then rinse it, and in the last rinse add hair conditioner – but only if the item is white.

For some reason, dark and any coloured items do not like conditioner: they are washed with shampoo only, without conditioner. Conditioner makes the down of white items gentle, while the down of dark and coloured ones seems to get tangled.

Drying

If you do not have a special stretching frame, take a sheet, lay the down item on it and stretch it out. A dry item cannot be stretched, but a wet one stretches perfectly. If you want a perfect result, tack the scallops of the shawl with thread and pin them to the sheet with safety pins.

Down items must not be washed or dried in a washing machine: this makes them lose their shape – simply put, they shrink. But since they need to be washed only once a year, this weakness is easy to forgive and the item can be washed by hand. The rest of the time, down items will reliably warm you and take care of your health.