Dance costumes are notoriously easy to get dirty- we sweat and we wear face and body makeup, a deadly combination. Unless you’re dancing in juvenile age group your dress probably has crystals, pearls, lace and ribbons sewn all over and it probably isn’t all the same colour, texture and delicacy.
Although some dance costume designers tell you differently here’s our number 1 tip: NEVER PUT YOUR DANCE COSTUME IN THE WASHING MACHINE! Your dress is delicate- shiny decorations like crystals, pearls and mirrors will get scratched and glue will loose its grip, resulting in loss of shine and applications. In general materials like georgette, organza and lycra are ok to machine wash, but your fringes, lace, beads etc.are not.
If you want to have your dress looking good for longer handwash it in lukewarm water with delicate detergent. We’ll do separate posts on how to take care of different types of materials but for now just keep the following three tips in mind:
– If possible, remove feathers before washing. If that’s not possible or feathers are sewn in places where they get dirty wash it without any strong rubbing and IMMEDIATELY use a blow dryer to dry the feathers
– Even when handwashing your dress use a colour catcher. These conveniently catch any bleeding colour from different-coloured materials and prevent it from settling over your dress
– Wash your dress as soon as possible after every competition. The longer sweat, makeup and tanning products stay on the fabric the more difficult it will be to clean your dress
If you have a light colour costume please make sure you wash your hands after applying makeup before you touch it! Also- when dancing in light-coloured costumes avoid instant tanners or make sure you’re using one that doesn’t transfer- this goes for men as well! One of our pet peeves is seeing Latin dancers starting the dance in a crisp white shirt and ending it looking like they’ve been dragged through puddles of mud.