Hi, let’s talk about washing your dance costumes today. One of the reasons why we have to hand wash our dance costumes is because dry cleaning and putting your costumes into the washing machine is not ideal. When working with dance costumes, we have a lot of rhinestones, embellishments, and sequins that we have to be careful of. We want to hand wash the dance costumes so that the colours don’t drop, and we want to make sure that we don’t stretch any of the speciality fabrics that we work with. These are delicate fabrics and we want to prolong the life of our dance costumes as much as possible.

Here are things you need so that you can hand wash your own dance costumes at home:

• First, we need a laundry detergent. It can be liquid or powder, as long as it says no bleach. 
• The second thing we need is a colour grabber or a colour protector. In case the colour of the costume bleeds, it won’t stain any other parts of the costume. This is in case the colour of the costume bleeds, it won’t stain any other parts of the costume. This is important.
• The next thing we need is a laundry bag. We’re going to put the costume inside the laundry bag and we at going to hand wash that. Of course we also need a white towel; important to have a white towel because we don’t want the colour of the towel to bleed onto the dance costume. 
• And of course, two basins of cold water. Let’s start.

The first thing we’re going to do is grab our dance costume, and we’re going to flip it inside out and put it inside the laundry bag. And once you’ve flipped it inside out, put it straight in, and we’re going to zip it up.

Now that we’ve got that done, we are going to have the colour grabber and we’re going to put that in the cold water first, just dropping it in.

Then we’re going to get some laundry detergent and you put it all inside one container cap. Don’t have to pour so much; about 1/3 cup of detergent is enough for one costume. Once you’re done with that, just mix the detergent in the cold water a little bit. Now we’re ready!

Grab your costume inside the laundry bag and now you’re just going to put it in. Just be very gentle, turn it around, you can squeeze it a little bit. I would open the costume a little bit inside the bag because this bag is big enough. Once you feel like you’re happy enough with how much it’s been soaked, don’t leave it there for too long. What we’re going to do is just grab it out, gently squeeze, not too tight, just be gentle. Do not wring the costume right now.

Once you’re done with that, we’re going over to the other one which is just purely cold water, just dunk it back in, and we’re going to try to remove all of the detergent. This can be a good process for you to play with your kids as well, to teach them how they can take care of their own dance costumes. Try not to leave your dance costumes soaking in the water, especially if it’s a costume with a different colour like a very bright colour like pink or blue. Soaking it will only make the colour run a lot more. Now we’re done with this, we’re going to squeeze it again gently and we’re going to put it on the white towel to dry the costume.

Remove it from the laundry bag and have your white towel already out on the table. So we’re going to flip the costume back to the right side out. And right now we’re going to lay the costume out as flat as you can onto the towel. What I like to do is just gently wrap it and just use my hands to hold it dry first.

Once you’re done with this, I like to gently roll the towel up, just gently squeeze again. The reason why we’re doing this is because we don’t want to really fold the costume tight, we want to make sure that every part of the costume is grabbed by the towel. Another method that you can do if you like is gently wring it around this way. We’re not pulling it too tight, just very gently so that we squeeze out any excess water and it doesn’t drip.

Once you feel happy and you’re done with this, gently unravel the towel it, open it, and I just like to do this a couple more times until the costume is not dripping anymore water out. You can do this with another 2 or 3 towels. Alternatively, what I like to do is flip it the other way and repeat the same process.

Hanging the costume is also equally important when you’re drying the costume. For this particular costume, you can see it’s been worn for quite a while, so we’re not going to hang it by straps just because it’s really heavy; so we’re going to half hang it this way to let it dry. Now, if you’re dealing with costumes that are smaller, of course you can definitely hang it by the straps. But for costumes that are a little bit heavier, especially if it’s heavily rhinestoned, we still recommend to half hang it. Do not use any clips to hold on to the costume, just because we don’t want the marks to be left there. Once you’re done, separate all your costumes so they don’t touch one another, and you’re good to go!

That’s all for today. Please like and subscribe here if you find this video useful for you. Comment down below if you have any questions and we’ll be happy to answer. See you around soon!

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