The Cotton Silk Crew Care Guide
Overview
At a glance, caring for knitwear can be confusing, especially with conflicting and alarmist opinions like "don't wash!" or "don't dry!". Yes, knits do need a little more TLC, but caring for your clothes doesn't have to be this complicated. To prove that, we've pulled together a simple guide on how you can keep your knits looking fresh wear after wear.
2 years ago, we felt it was time to update our knitwear offering and reckon we have landed on something pretty special. We adjusted the fit on our knitted crew to be slightly slimmer and strengthened the rib construction to protect its elasticity. We then knitted it with a yarn consisting of 70% cotton,10% silk and 20% nylon. Silk is the strongest natural fibre available, and nylon is a filament fibre (meaning the fibres are long) so blending the two with a predominantly cotton yarn created a knit that was far more durable, less susceptible to pilling and an excellent insulator; The Cotton Silk Crew was born, and it remains a perfect wardrobe staple for the chilly winter months.
Here's how to take care of it:
Washing
We'd encourage you to hand-wash your Cotton Silk Crew. The easiest way to do this would be to use a liquid detergent like SoakWash (also available in store from Wixii), which doesn't require rinsing after soaking, and is gentle on the knit. This is the better option as continuous machine cycles can damage the garment over time, because silk (as a fibre) loses up to 20% of its strength while wet. This is also a great way to avoid pilling, as pills are formed by the friction that happens inside a washing machine - another strong case for hand-washing your knits.
In a perfect world, you'd hand-wash your Cotton Silk Crew. But we know life gets in the way, and you’re probably going to chuck it in the machine from time to time; so it’s important to use short, gentle cycles if you are machine washing this garment. Use cold water when washing - be it by hand or machine. Both Cotton and Silk may shrink if washed at high temperatures, so its important to keep the temperature low (below 30ºC).
Drying, steaming, ironing
Because of its knitted structure, hanging the Cotton Silk Crew out to dry may cause it to warp and lose its shape, so we recommend drying while flat in shade, or in the dryer on a low temperature.
If you've been keeping up, you'll know that we are big advocates of using a steamer to soften creases on garments. The same can be done on our Cotton Silk Crew. If you’re using an iron, avoid using the steam function because the combination of pressure, direct heat, and steam may damage the silk component. It pays to either steam, or iron - but not both at once.
Storage
It’s ideal to keep your knits folded as they can stretch in the shoulder, and may lose their shape when hung conventionally on a hanger.
Hanging technique
If you’re low on space for storing folded knits, you can hang them folded in half over the bottom rung of a hanger to prevent warping during storage. There are many ways to do this, but this method seems to work best:
1. Fold the garment in half vertically.
2. Pull both sleeves over the bodice of one side of the garment
3. Hold sleeves in place, and pull from the neckline to slide over the rung of a hanger.
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