Updated: 9/19/2022 | How to Wash Selkie Dresses
Selkie Chocolate Lace Puff
Selkie is a popular women’s apparel brand that makes romantic dresses that make people feel like pretty princesses.
Their apparel is not cheap, so you’ll want to take great care of your Selkie pieces, and one of the biggest concerns when owning a Selkie dress is how to clean and care for it.
Below we’ll share the ways you can care for your Selkie pieces and our favorite method of washing our Selkie dresses.
Related: Selkie Review – Is it Worth Buying?
How to Wash Selkie Dresses
There are three ways you can wash Selkie dresses:
- Professional Dry Cleaning – The most expensive but safest way to take care of your Selkie apparel. It typically costs us anywhere between $20-25 USD to clean our Selkie dresses in Seattle, Washington. You will get a dress back that is free of wrinkles and creases, so it’s totally worth it!
- Hand Wash and Hang Dry – You can wash your Selkie by hand and hang dry.
- Machine Wash on Gentle and Hang Dry – This is our preferred method of washing our Selkies! It’s fast and works great for most dresses unless the fabric is silk or the fabric is super delicate. I typically wash my cotton and organza selkies using this method.
We’ll share how you can machine wash your Selkie dress(es) below.
My So Called Life (MSCL) cotton puff after it’s been machine laundered
How to Machine Wash your Selkie Dresses
Here is our guide on how to machine wash your Selkie pieces.
The steps are super simple and very effective. We typically wash our dresses every 2-3 wears just to preserve the life of the dress.
Step 1: Spot clean any stubborn stains.
Prior to throwing our Selkie into the washing machine, we check our dresses and look for stains that may be hard to get our with machine washing.
In the kitchen or bathroom sink, we use a bit of detergent or dishwashing liquid to remove stains from dirt, food, beverages, or other unknown sources.
Once the stains have been removed to your satisfaction, you can move onto the next step.
Step 2: Place your dress(es) in mesh laundry bags.
Selkie Tea Rose dress in mesh laundry bag
NEVER directly throw your dresses into the washing machine. ALWAYS use a LARGE mesh laundry bag.
We received two large mesh laundry bags from Rothy’s when we purchased their handbags. The mesh laundry bags are large enough to fit our French Puffs, Tea Rose, and Puff dresses.
We try to place the garment in the bag in an accordion-folded style so that the laundry detergent and water make contact with all the surfaces of the dress.
You’ll want the dress to have some space in the laundry bag. Stuffing it in the bag will reduce the amount of surface area and won’t clean the dress thoroughly.
Related: Rothy’s Ballet Flats Review – Are They Worth It?
Step 3: Place 1-4 dresses into your washer.
Place your dresses in mesh laundry bags into your washer. We recommend placing anywhere between 1-4 dresses per load and never more than 4.
Always wash with like colors. We wash our white dresses alone, pastels and light colors together, and darks together.
Selkie and Maison Amory dresses in mesh laundry bags
Step 4: Add laundry detergent and wash on the gentle or delicate cycle.
Add your favorite laundry detergent (we use Tide pods) to the washing machine and set your laundry to wash on the gentle or delicate cycle. This should be the slowest wash setting with the water set to the coldest setting.
Always remember, colder and slower is better for your dresses.
Step 5: Use pant hangers to hang dry your Selkie dresses.
After your dresses have finished going through the washing cycle, remove the dresses from the mesh laundry bags and use pant hangers to hang dry your dresses.
We use pant hangers because this ensures the dresses won’t slip and fall onto the ground while drying.
It typically takes a half-day for organza dresses to fully dry and up to one full day for cotton and mixed fabric dresses to fully dry.
We prefer to hang our dresses in our bedroom or living room and away from sunlight to prevent any fading, discoloration, or heat damage to your fabrics. The heat from the sun can destroy certain synthetic fabrics and cause elastic fabrics to lose their elasticity.
Hang drying the Selkie Tea Rose dress
Step 6: Steam out the wrinkles!
Steaming out wrinkles can be done anytime, but I try to steam my dresses once they are dry so that they are ready to be worn.
When traveling with my Selkie pieces, I always request a steamer or iron to steam my dresses at my destination.
At home, I use this handheld steamer to get the wrinkles out of my Selkie garments. While it does a decent job, it doesn’t do as great of a job as dry cleaning.
Step 7: Place dresses in garment bags.
Once our dresses are fully dried, we place our dresses in garment bags. We can typically fit 2-3 dresses in each garment bag depending on its size.
Nordstrom also has FREE spacious garment bags when you shop from them. Check them out!
Final Thoughts
It’s super easy to care for your Selkie dresses at home.
While dry cleaning is an excellent method, it’s not always necessary. It can also be expensive in the long run.
You can easily wash your dresses at home and save money for MORE Selkie dresses.
Give our method a try and let us know what you think in the comments.
If you found our guide on how to wash Selkie dresses helpful, please share it on Pinterest. Thanks for your support!
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