This post is not for the faint of heart. I do not recommend washing your wedding dress at home if it is made of silk, or if you would suffer great emotional distress if your dress becomes damaged by your own hand. If, however, the $200 to $400 price tag of having your dress professionally dry-cleaned is more hurtful than a less-than-perfect washing result, press on, and wash your wedding dress yourself. It was honestly so easy.
You will need powdered oxy-clean or similar product. I had these 3-in-1 stain-booster packs, which are powdered inside, and the ingredients are comparable to brand-name oxy-clean. CLEAR dish soap (you don’t want dyes leaving any colors). A soft cloth. A bath tub. A bucket. Optional items include clean gloves, a drying rack, a toothbrush.
Start by filling your tub with cold water and adding in your powdered stain remover. Mix until all the powder is disolved. Lay your dress face-up in the tub with the bottom closest to the drain. When the water drains from the tub you want the most dirty bits (most likely the bottom of the dress) to be nearest the drain.
Work to submerge as much of the dress as possible in the cold water and leave to soak in the stain-remover for four to eight hours. Look how dirty that water is already!
After a long soak in the Oxy powder, carefully drain the tub and refill with cold water. You may want to remove your dress from the tub while draining and refilling, or at least scoot it up away from the drain, maybe hanging it over the side of the tub. If your dress is very heavy, be mindful not to put too much weight on any one portion of the dress. After refilling the tub, get your bucket and fill with more cold water. Add another Oxy scoop or pack if your dress is still looking very dark, and a few healthy squirts of clear dish soap. Mix thoroughly in the bucket of water until soap and powder have completely dissolved. Add the soapy bucket water to the tub with the dress and gently agitate with your hands. Pay attention to the under-arms and anywhere there might be invisible stains from makeup, food oils, or sweat. Leave the dress to soak in the soapy water for another eight hours. During this time, take a soft cloth or toothbrush with more soap and hand-pat or gently scrub any stains.
Drain the tub again and this time fill it with clean cold water to rinse. You don’t have to let the dress sit at this stage, just carefully agitate the clean water to get all the soap out of the dress, then drain the tub again. If anywhere is still dirty or stained, give it another hand-scrubbing with soap and a soft-cloth, and rinse again. Repeat as needed. Let the dress lay-flat in the tub for several hours to continue to let water run off of it. Then, if you have a drying rack, lay the dress carefully over it, evenly distributing the weight and spreading it out at much as possible to let air-dry. If you have a very large dress, you may want to let the dress air-dry on all of your clean towels on the floor of a large room until it is dry (lightweight) enough to be hung-up. Always use the dress-hanging straps inside the dress to hang it on the hanger. Don’t rely on the shoulder to support the weight of the entire dress.
Leave the dress hanging out in the open for several days in a well-ventilated room to ensure it’s completely dry before putting into storage. You may want to use a hair-dryer on low in certain areas to prevent wrinkles and dry the dress faster. Store in a garment bag, hanging up, in a dark dry place, preferably without other clothes smooshed up against it.
