How to Friday - How to clean festival clothes

For some people the music festival is a staple of the summer itinerary but it’s impossible to escape the pile of laundry afterwards if you, or maybe your children, were one of the lucky few who get tickets.

What you find yourself facing depends very much on which festival you went to. Attendees of the Burning Man Festival in Nevada struggle with the distinctive Black Rock Desert grit while New Bohemians at Soundwave in Croatia are faced with sea salt from the Adriatic. Glastonbury, which is considered by many to be the archetypical British festival, is famous for its mud.

I’ve never been to a festival so to find out what types of stains to expect I’ve enlisted the help of three regular festival goers. With their help I’ve come up with solutions to three of the most common festival laundry problems.

Soot – the first thing to do with is to remove as much of the soot as possible; a good shake outside and a once over with a vacuum cleaner do the trick nicely. Once you’ve got as much off as possible soak your sooty clothes overnight. After beating and rinsing try washing your clothes normally but if they don’t come clean you might have to think about getting them professionally cleaned. Be careful with what products you use – when soot is mixed with a solvent it makes a very nasty ink which can be almost impossible to remove.

Mud – just like with soot take your muddy clothes outside and shake off what you can. After this the trick is to use a prewash cycle which shifts heavy soiling before the main wash and you should have clean clothes first time.

Takeaway food – there are too many types of takeaway food to list all the possible combinations and ways to clean them. General advice is to rinse and soak using cold water and your personal choice of spot stain remover.

All of the above – alternatively you could follow this advice from inveterate festival goer Chris. When I asked him what types of stain end up on your clothes after a festival he told me “Nothing ends up on your clothes. You bin/bonfire the lot before you leave. ”

This post contains general information but if you are worried about causing permanent damage to your clothes then please seek professional advice.