Reenact-SA

Hello All

Is there a tried & true reenactors method of washing uniform shirts trousers jackets etc to reduce shrinkage to an absolute minimum (cotton type fabric DAK green shirt exampled). Colour loss is no issue.
I'm guessing cold water but ahve no idea what type powder (if any).
Thx for the help.
S'
Keith

Most wont wash their uniforms Keith! Its why theres lots of tubby smelly reenactors out there!! ha-ha!! But seriously, if you wash the DAK uniform stuff, do it in cold water, Ive dyed mine, bleached mine (which is a big no-no by the way!!) and in cold water its fine. With regards to wool, I'd just leave it. If it smells of formaldehide just put it on the line during a rain storm...that'll air it out. Ive just used standard washing powder. Im sure there'll be a bunch of other opinions on it, but that's what Ive done.

Yes, the cotton uniforms just cold or warm wash with regular powder, by hand is safest.
Wool uniforms - don't wash them, if they are wet, just dry and air them on the washing line - and once dry, use a stiff brush to remove the dirt.
If you want to slightly age your uniforms to get the veteran look - do it naturally. Salt water followed by natural drying and sunning on the clothes line, followed by fresh water, followed by natural sunlight again.
Never use bleach or similar. Bleach works on the different dyes at different rates, and you will get some funky un-natural colours in your clothes.

Hope that helps.

I wash my undershirt but not the trousers or tunic, you've got to look like you've been fighting in the field

Yes, re the bleaching...I bleached my LW Tropical tunic... it went a lovely canary yellow. Alright if you want to be seen by just about anybody in 3000 mile radius! A quick wash in some tan dye remedied the situation... but yeah, as Brendon and Brad mention, leave the wools as is, it looks better if theyre dirty.
Much to my neighbours amusement I wear my uniforms around home all the time....not just because Im vain and I like em, but because it helps wear them in.

My cotton stuff is usually warm hand washed. Any clothes powder is ok.

Andy

Thanks all for your input, much appreciated.
S'
Keith

I wash my cotton US stuff in cold water. Nil issues.

Dry-cleaning is an alternative. My dry-cleaner assures me the woolen uniforms won't shrink in dry cleaning, only in laundering.

All of my uniforms are spearhead militia (So they are all hand crafted in China).

For my cotton uniforms (1940 UK summer BDU, and LW tropical) stuff I just machine wash (cold) as per normal and dry them indoors out of direct sunlight. I am yet to have a problem with shrinkage. I would not dry them in a tumble dryer as that may shrink them?

For my wool uniform (FJ continental) I hand wash it in tepid water with soap. I then rinse it in the shower (tepid water again). Again I dry it indoors out of direct sunlight.

Never had any problems with the above two methods. But as we can see from the above posts there is more than one way (all of which sound like they work).