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September Newsletter

MakingSchool Wardrobes Last 

Back to School Bugs

Q&A on Pillow Cleaning 

 

Making School Wardrobes Last

You have probably completed your back-to-school shopping for the kids and may be amazed how much they have grown in the last few months. While relatives and friends may be pleased with welcoming those outgrown clothes into their homes, you may be staring into your closet thinking, how can I make my wardrobe last just a bit longer?

Follow these suggestions for proper clothing care:

  • Do not hang wet or moist garments in the closet.
  • Mend all rips and tears immediately, especially before the garment is subjected to a cleaning process.
  • Do not store dirty clothing from one season to the next. Treat and remove all stains as soon as possible after spillage has occurred.
  • Clean clothes frequently. Soiled clothes invite insects.
  • Follow the care instructions and do not remove care labels.
  • Carefully inspect garments after each wearing to determine the need for repairs or cleaning.
  • Do not allow perfumes, hair spray, or lotions to come in contact with wearing apparel, as the alcohol contained therein may cause color loss.
  • Do not store or allow
    garments to be in prolonged or direct contact with artificial or direct
    light

Back to School Bugs

Kids love to share. And, that includes head lice. Yuck. But what to do? Head lice need the warmth, food, and moisture that a human scalp provides. Away from people, lice usually will die within three to 10 days. The following steps will help eliminate head lice.

  1. Wash bed linens and
    washable clothing in hot water (140°F) for 20 minutes.
  2. Heat dry clothing or other
    fabric items in clothes dryer.
  3. Items that cannot be washed
    or drycleaned should be stored for 30 days in sealed plastic bags.
  4. Use only insecticides
    approved for use against lice. Read and follow the instructions.

Customer Question: How Do You Clean Pillows?

A: The filling in bed pillows can be down, foam rubber, foam chips,
polyester fiberfill, and kapok. The safest method to clean a pillow is
based on the type of filling. If the filling in the pillow is fiberfill it
is usually best to launder or remove the filling and replace the ticking. Foam chips can harden with time and begin to crumble. It is probably best not to clean these types of pillows.

Down-filled pillows can be cleaned using a pillow machine. The down is removed from the ticking and placed directly into the pillow machine. The down is sometimes deodorized with ozone or sanitized with ultraviolet light. The features are then blown from the pillow machine into a new ticking and additional feathers may be added to fill out the pillow, if necessary.

Washing down pillows can present several problems. The fabric ticking may be too fragile to handle the agitation of washing and tumble drying or so soiled it would be best to replace it. Often the ticking is sized with water-sizings. These sizings help hold the down in the ticking. If the sizing is removed in washing, feathers may leak out.

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