How to starch a petticoat or dress at home?

Starch has long been used to give clothing a fresh, formal appearance. Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers knew well how to starch a dress. It would seem that the distant past ... However, in our days starch has found its application.

Any starchy product will look "like a needle" and shine with freshness. The fact is that the thinnest breathable film is formed on the fabric, protecting it from pollution. During washing, it is easily washed off, and dirt also leaves with it.

Why starch garments?

• The dress will receive a sharper volumetric shape, which will hold until the next wash.
• The impression of freshness and presentability will remain longer.
• The product will wrinkle less.
• The outlines of the collar and cuffs will remain correct, crumpled due to their stiffness.

A starched knit dress will look especially impressive. It stretches less, holds its shape, the pattern becomes more prominent, the threads of knitted fabric lie more evenly. And even the color of the thing seems to be getting cleaner and brighter.

How to prepare starch paste?

At home, for this purpose, use ordinary potato starch, which is always present in the arsenal of any housewife.

Important!

If you contact dry cleaning, your product is starched with chemical additives.

There are three degrees of stiffness in the preparation of the paste: soft, medium and strong.

• For soft 1 liter of water put 1 teaspoon of starch - in order to starch a dress made of thin fabric, for example, from a cambric or chiffon.
• For an average of 1 liter of water, 1 tablespoon of starch is bred - for knitted dresses or made from linen or cotton.
• For the strong - 2 tablespoons - it is prepared for starching of individual details of the outfit: flounces, collar, cuffs.

Cold water is first poured into the starch, the lumps formed are thoroughly triturated, achieving uniformity and consistency comparable to thick sour cream. And only then boiling water is poured into a thin stream, bringing the volume to 1 liter. Before immersing the dress in a liquid paste, the composition should be cooled.

What to do with the dress?

To manage to starch the dress, it must be completely saturated with starch for 30–40 minutes. During this time, it will not hurt to turn it several times. Then remove from the liquid, squeeze out the extra paste and hang the item on the coat hanger. Dry the dress at room temperature, away from heating batteries, in no case including an electric dryer and other heating appliances.
Tips

1. To make the fabric look elegant, add some salt to the diluted starch.
2. You can enhance the gloss if a little molten stearin is added to the paste.
3. Sometimes you can see the recommendations to dry the starched product in the cold. This is possible, but it is unlikely that this method will give the product additional rigidity.

Ironing a starched dress is best done slightly damp, while it will be possible to gently smooth out all the small details, folds, avoiding creases and maintaining shape. If the dress is still dry, you do not need to steam it with an iron, it is better to sprinkle it with water or iron it through a damp, thin cloth. If the iron adheres to the fabric, add a few drops of turpentine to the diluted starch.

Wedding dress: starch or not?

There may be no need to completely starch a wedding dress at home.But the petticoats should be soaked with paste so that the skirt was lush, have to. If there are several lower skirts, you can adjust the volume, processing not all the petticoats.

Here's how to starch a petticoat: a lower skirt is greased with a starch solution (make it harder) and ironed without waiting until it finally dries.

Tip

There is a simple rule: you can starch - and sometimes it is necessary - everything except underwear and black products. Otherwise, the linen will lose moisture permeability, and the black thing will be covered with whitish stains.

Make a baby dress more elegant

With a festive baby dress, they do the same as with a wedding one. That is, the petticoats starch and then iron them. Such dresses are usually decorated with small details: ruffles, flounces, frills - which after washing look wilted and crumpled. They should also be starched and ironed with a small ironing.

Something About Starching Technique

By the way, to process individual parts of the dress, whether it’s for children or adults, it is convenient to use a starchy spray, which is sold in branded household chemical stores. The spray is sprayed onto the collar, cuffs or shuttlecocks, which are immediately ironed.

A knitted dress is starch in accordance with the general rules, but there are some peculiarities. Hanging to dry it, of course, is impossible. The dress is dried in a horizontal position laid on a towel. If laces are tied along the hem, they need to be straightened and secured in the necessary form by tailor pins.