Many people ask about the best way to care for African fabrics, especially the kitenge clothing they buy. A number of them are afraid of buying kitenge clothes because they lack knowledge on how to maintain them.
We have decided to share a care guide on how to wash and care for your African fabrics and enjoy a long stay with them. These fabrics have color and if you don’t care for them well, they may lose their brilliance.
Test Color Fastness
The thumb rule for caring for your kitenge fabric is to do a color fastness test. This will help you understand whether your fabric loses color or not. The color fastness test is a very simple test. Start by getting your kitenge fabric damp, then get a white cloth for example a handkerchief, and iron it onto your damp kitenge cloth or fabric. You can then use the detergent to wash this white cloth, if the color doesn’t go off, then it’s important to wash your kitenge fabric with similar colors
Temperature.
Always wash your kitenge fabric with cold water or lukewarm. This is the safest easy to maintain your African fashion fabrics. If you will use a machine to wash your clothes, it’s best to wash in cold water on a gentle cycle and ensure to skip the spin cycle. The right temperature for washing your kitenge fabrics will preserve your clothes.
Proper drying
After washing your kitenge clothes, it is important that you dry them properly. You can do this by hanging them or laying them down. However, always ensure that they are put inside out to avoid the direct sun damaging them. Avoid wringing or twisting them to dry will. This is very harmful and can compromise the colors in your fabric.
Ironing your African garments
When ironing your African fabrics, ensure that the temperature is ideal for cotton clothing as most African fabrics are highly cotton.
In summary,
- Use cold moderate water with similar colors of clothing.
- Use the temperature of 30 degrees or a cold wash setting is perfect when using a machine.
- Ensure to always turn the garment(s) inside out when washing in the machine.
- Use a mild washing powder
- When using the washing machine, use a gentle machine setting such as ‘hand wash’ to avoid the spin cycle.
- Also, line dry out of direct sunlight as the sun can cause color damage to your fabrics.
As our Trillion looks store policy is, we always pre-wash all the fabric before we cut and tailor your garments. This helps us give you strong garments which do not shrink. Go through our online shop and purchase your kitenge clothes. If you want a custom order, please reach out to us on +256788340615 or click here
Also, remember that we implement fairtrade policies in our business operation which has helped us transform the lives and communities of the women and youth artisans we work with you. Every purchase made from this store contributes to the well-being of our artisans who work from home.
Please go through our artisan’s profile and learn about them.
