wood kilts and dry cleaners

**Confused.Nihilist** · 10th February 08, 02:54 PM

I talked to Jerry at SWK and he recommended the dry cleaner for my wool kilt. Go fig. Guess I should have done that first. I may put it off for a few weeks though. Thanks for the info guys.

Oh and I found a wood worker to whittle away the dingy spots on my wood kilt. The comfort liner spare splinters in the bum, by the way. So that's taken care of too!

**Nanook** · 10th February 08, 04:17 PM

Originally Posted by Chef

Be very careful!!!

First does the kilt really need to be cleaned? If it just really needs to be pressed don't get it cleaned. The chemicals used are very bad for a kilt. They remove the lanolin from the kilt. The more you have it cleaned the faster it will wear out and the easier it will get dirty.

What about the Electrolux Lagoon System: http://www.laundrysystems.electrolux.com/node143.asp

"Lagoon™ includes washing, drying and ironing using water as a base for a surprisingly effective and ecological wash. Lagoon™ can be used for all types of fabric, even for fabrics which were previously thought of as solely the domain of dry cleaning."

**James MacMillan** · 11th February 08, 07:41 AM

My thoughts about taking kilts to the dry-cleaners (wood or wool)

Don't!

**McFarkus** · 11th February 08, 09:23 AM

Originally Posted by Panache

Being that few on XMTS are familiar with wood kilts, I have changed your title to "wool kilts"

Jamie

Jamie,

It still says wood on my monitor.

**Barb T** · 11th February 08, 09:38 AM

Unless you've spilled something on a kilt or have sat in something mucky or have been wiping dirty-sweaty hands on your kilt, it's unlikely to need cleaning. You never want to dry clean a kilt just on principle! If you're careful to air a kilt after wearing it (i.e., don't put it away sweaty), you can go years without having to clean it. My band kilt is perfectly fine after 6 years of wearing it for parades and competitions every weekend in the summers. But I'm careful about letting it dry and air well. So, it's not dirty or smelly.

If you have a spill, use something like Era and a Q-tip, and blot the dirty spot - don't rub, or you'll have a fuzzy patch. Let it soak, and blot-rinse with a clean wet towel. Takes out almost anything from coffee to mustard to clown make-up (don't ask....).

I really really have to underscore that a dry cleaner can completely ruin the pleats. It's a big temptation for the dry cleaner to lay the kilt out flat in an arc, fanning the pleats, and then pressing the dickens out of them. Pleats _must_ be pressed with a constant width from the bottom of the fell to the bottom of the kilt. If the pleats are pressed in wedges because the kilt was fanned on the press board, you'll get the dreaded waves across the bottom of the kilt. And, once it's mis-pressed, it's almost impossible to re-press it correctly.

If a kilt has any shaping at all (i.e., the waist is smaller than the hips), you can only press the pleats straight and parallel if you hang the entire fell off the end of the ironing board and have only the open part of the pleats on the board when you're pressing. If you're careful, you can do this on a touch-up basis without basting. Just line the pleats up in nice straight parallel lines, and press small sections at a time. If the pleats _really_ need a good press, you're better off basting the pleats in place and pressing.

Here are a couple of pics, one showing a couple of well-pressed kilts and one showing a badly pressed kilt - you'll see the "waves" in the latter.

You can also see in the first kilt on the left, below, how easy it would be to have the pleats fan if you tried to lay the kilt flat, because it has so much taper between the waist and hips. But, you can see that the same would be true for the other kilt in the picture, because it, too, has taper.