Laundry Day: Washing Costumes

Coming home after convention means laundry.

Normal every day clothes are no problem, but what about costumes? How do I deal with this fancy outfit I made?

At Jordan Con in 2023, the Festival of Lights (aka Tinker Rave) was super fun and I danced for hours… in a coat. The event was indoors in the AC, but I got plenty of exercise in my Syl bridge Four Cosplay! (Based on Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive.)

After 2 to 3 days of wear, and couple layers of freshening spray, my costumes for Sylphrena need a good wash. After a convention, I usually hand wash my costumes in the bathtub to un-stink-ify them. Here are the steps I usually take:

  1. First, I fill the tub with hot water - this is about the same temperature as I prefer for washing my hands.

    1. If you don’t have a tub, I have also used a large plastic storage bin too.

  2. Then I add a little bit of my usual laundry detergent. I use about half the amount that I would add to a normal load of laundry in my washing machine.

  3. Next, I add the washable costume pieces. I am sure to get them completely wet in the bathtub, and I make sure the water level is high enough to cover all the garments.

  4. After that, I let the clothes soak for about 45 minutes in the sudsy solution. About every 15 to 10 minutes, I will come and agitate the clothes to help the soap slosh around to clean the costume.

    1. I usually wear dish gloves for this step since the detergent can dry out my skin.

  5. Then I drain the tub. To remove the detergent, I fill up the tup again rinse my costumes in cool water two times.

    1. Now if I have had an outdoor adventure, and my costume is truly disgusting, I will go through the wash process twice or even three times for terrible amounts of mud and dust. In these very drastic cases, I will often use Oxy-clean for the 2nd step, detergent again for the 3rd.

  6. Then it’s time for gently squeezing out the water, and drip drying. Sometimes, I will drape the costume over a step ladder and let it drip into the tub. Or, if available, I will let the costume drip dry in the shower for about 20 to 30 minutes.

  7. After that I use clean dry towels and roll up my wet costumes inside of them like a sleeping bag. This helps remove a lot of extra water, but I also like to squeeze the rolled-up bundle gently to remove a bit more.

    1. Then I take out the costume, and I hang up those towels to dry.

  8. Lastly, it’s time for air drying. After I have hung up the costume, I like to setup a fan to help this process. The goal I have in mind is to dry the costume completely within a few hours. This will help the cosplay costume remain fresh and ready for the next use!

Now for pro tips since you kept reading, and may care about details like I do:

  1. I prewashed cotton fabrics that I used for this costume, so I was confident that the colors would not run.

  2. For stubborn stains, or areas that seem to hold onto odor, I will use a stain spray to pre-treat the costumes. I have used Dreft (located in the baby isle) as a good stain remover.

  3. After I wash and dry my costumes, I take a few minutes for some repairs. For example, some seams had a thread that got loose, so I knotted and trimmed those.

  4. I’ll take care of any darning needed to help reinforce seams.

  5. There were some small areas of synthetic fibers that were fraying a little bit, so I carefully melted those areas over a flame using a regular candle lighter.

  6. I also had a glass gem pop out of one of my buttons, so I fixed that with some puff paint and glitter to fill in the missing component. The substitution isn’t very noticeable, and I think it looks better than having an empty spot for a glittery gem in a button.

  7. The goal here, is that I like to have my costume completely ready to go for the next wear. Taking care of these small things helps make it easy if I want to go to an event on short notice.

Kaylee Godley