How to Care for New Smart Dresses for Girls
You're looking for a new smart dress for girls for a special occasion. After all, quite an event is coming up! But how do you find a style that will serve longer than just once – not only because of environmental impact, but also your family budget?
What's worth knowing so that a new smart dress for girls maintains its shape and beautiful appearance for as long as possible? Is washing the outfit immediately after purchase a good idea?
Washing Smart Dresses for Girls After Purchase – Yes or No?
After successful clothing shopping, many mums have doubts about whether smart dresses for girls should be washed before first wearing. Theoretically, these clothes are new and unused, so they shouldn't be dirty or dangerous for children. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.
Firstly, clothes in shops, including elegant dresses for girls, are often tried on by many people before purchase. After all, everyone wants to check whether their chosen style will definitely be good for their child. It's therefore reasonable to assume that elements such as dead skin cells or perspiration might be found on them. For hygiene reasons, it's worth washing smart dresses for girls before wearing them.
Secondly, before clothes reach the shop, they must travel a long journey from manufacturer to warehouse to carrier. To prevent the fabric from losing quality or simply going mouldy in transport, various antifungal agents are used. These can be dangerous to health and cause allergic reactions on sensitive skin. Moreover, during the production of new clothes, many substances are also used to bleach, dye, soften, lighten, clean, or create additional coatings. If you want to protect your child from unpleasant ailments, first wash the smart dress for girls – and preferably twice!
How to Effectively Wash a New Smart Dress for Girls to Get Rid of "Shop Smell"
Almost every garment bought in a shop (whether physical or online) has that specific, chemical, difficult-to-remove smell that might initially put children off. No wonder your daughter might initially be reluctant to reach for a new smart dress for girls for this reason.
Try the following methods that will help effectively remove unwanted smells from clothing:
- Wash the outfit twice according to the recommendations on the label
- Add a little of your favourite essential oil to the wash, such as pine oil, which will give the fabric freshness and eliminate microorganisms
- You can also bathe the smart dress for girls in a vinegar solution. However, we only recommend this method for coloured clothes!
- Freezing the garment for at least 24 hours is also a good solution
- Iron the dress using hot steam
What to Do with the Label in Smart Dresses for Girls?
A label is a requirement for products containing at least 80% textile fibres. It contains the most important information about further care, as well as the composition of the material from which the garment was made, care instructions, and the manufacturer's logo. It's a little cheat sheet that allows you to quickly check how to properly wash and dry smart dresses for girls, for example.
Unfortunately, the problem with labels is that they often cause itching and skin irritation where they're sewn in. Moreover, their unskilled removal can lead to outfit damage. What should you do in such a situation?
Removing Labels from Clothing
If you want to remove a label from a smart dress for girls, first and foremost, don't tear it off by force! This might break the weave and thereby weaken connections between garment sections, which is a direct path to outfit destruction. Instead, get yourself a buttonhole ripper, which you can buy in most haberdasheries. This way you'll remove the label without damaging the seam.
The second way to get rid of a clothing label is to cut it right at the seam. However, be careful not to break any thread! This solution works best with side labels that aren't in direct contact with skin. Otherwise, fabric remnants might be even more irritating in daily wear than before their removal.
Storing Labels
If you have an excellent memory and know how each garment should be cared for, feel free to throw the label in the bin. However, when you have doubts, it's worth keeping it for later.
You can store the cut-out label physically, for example in a folder, along with a description of which outfit it belongs to, or scan it and appropriately describe the file. This way, even if you happen to forget the care rules, you have all the information at your fingertips.
Caring for Smart Dresses for Girls – How to Do It Properly So the Outfit Can Serve for a Long Time
Of course, the first treatments around a new smart dress for girls are very important. However, they're not enough to maintain the garment's high condition. For the outfit to be used by your child for a long time, care for it after each wearing.
Here's a list of our other articles where you'll find the best tips useful for keeping smart dresses for girls in excellent condition:
- How to wash smart dresses for girls so they can serve for many occasions
- How to remove stubborn stains from smart dresses for girls
- How to store smart dresses for girls to maintain their shape for a long time