Tips for spot cleaning your wedding dress

Our friends at the Wedding Gown Preservation Company posted this wonderful blog about spot cleaning of your wedding dress. This is a summary of those tips. Very useful tips!

Before treating an entire gown, always test an area in an inconspicuous part of the wedding gown first. If in doubt consult a wedding gown preservation and cleaning specialist.

Blot: Blot is the key word. Like your wedding day makeup, make sure to blot your stain with a moist (not wet) sponge or cotton ball. Putting a towel underneath the stain while you blot will absorb part of the stain and prevent other parts of your gown from being stained. Blot your stains dry.

I always keep Shout Wipes (not a Tide Stick, which has bleach in it), Goo Be Gone and Dawn washing detergent in my emergency kit. Shout wipes get out the majority of stains. Goo Be Gone gets out the things Shout wipes don’t, like tar, grease and oil. (The last two are the reason why I still carry Dawn – that and to wash down dirty chairs if I need to for the ceremony.)

For tricky stains like red wine, apply club soda or white wine with a sponge to the stained area. Then dab the stained area with a mixture of cool water and ammonia. Always gently blot dry the area. For lipstick, the best to spot clean lipstick is to use a mixture of 3 tbsp. alcohol and 3 drops of baby shampoo. It is important to remove the lipstick stain as soon as you find it. Perspiration stains are acid based and as time goes by they become alkaline stains. We suggest using a two part cleaning process to remove these stains. Add one tablespoon of vinegar to a half a cup of water. Blot the stained area with a cheese cloth or cotton ball, dry, and then use a mixture of alcohol and baby shampoo going over the same area. Always rinse using a blotting method to remove alcohol and shampoo solution. One method used to clean blood stains is one part hydrogen peroxide to 9 parts water. Make sure you remove solution with warm water blotting afterwards with a clean towel to dry.

One thing every bride should expect -- you will have what I call "ring around the bottom" -- the bottom of your dress, about 1/2" all the way around, will be brown and dirty. That's normal and gown preservation companies and dry cleaners expect that. Don't worry about pretreating those.