The five top tips for combating static in clothes
Do you often notice that your hair stands on end when you put on and take off certain items of clothing, or that you randomly get small electric shocks? If so, your clothes have become statically charged due to the friction between the fabric and your skin. This happens particularly often with tops made of synthetic fibres and wool, or with shoes with rubber soles. In this article, we reveal five home remedies for dealing with static in clothes.
3 April 2024 • 4 min reading time
How to remove static from clothes
If your clothes have static in them, you will notice this when you touch a car door or use an escalator, for example. What happens here is that your clothes discharge because you have touched metal – a small electric shock occurs.
To prevent your clothes from crackling and your hair from standing up, you can discharge the static clothes before you put them on. To do this, simply pull a metal hanger through your garment or run the iron over it.
If you’d like to prevent your clothes from becoming statically charged again during the course of the day, attach a safety pin to the seams of your garment. If it’s too late for this and you’re already out and about, simply discharge your jumper or other garment by leaning against a radiator or a piece of metal furniture.
Static in clothes is usually caused by the friction of dry fibres against your skin. Synthetic fibres and wool in particular are very susceptible to this. But this doesn’t mean you have to avoid these materials altogether – just ensure you add more moisture to such textiles.
Fabric softener ensures that your clothes smell good and have added moisture. If you don’t want to use fabric softener when washing your clothing, you can also make a mixture of ¼ fabric softener and ¾ water. Pour this fabric softener mixture into a spray bottle and spray it onto static garments before you put them on. You can also use white vinegar instead of fabric softener.
Sometimes it’s not the fibres of your clothes, but your skin that isn’t sufficiently moisturised. This can result in static in your clothes. In this case, apply a rich body lotion to your skin to prevent static charge. Doing so has an antistatic effect even afterwards, and also ensures that your arm hair doesn’t stick up.
An anti-static spray is the ultimate way to make clothes anti-static. However, this special spray is quite expensive and can only be purchased in specialist shops. Instead of anti-static spray, you can also simply use a transparent hair spray. Spray this onto the inside of your clothes from a distance of at least 25 cm. This will reduce the friction between the fabric and your skin, and the static garment will no longer ‘stick’ to you.
Baking powder is probably the home remedy par excellence. It can be used for cleaning, to get rid of unpleasant odours and even for discharging static in clothes! Before washing, sprinkle both sides of the garment with baking powder or baking soda and then put it in the washing machine as usual. You’ll notice that the static electricity, odours and sweat marks have magically disappeared from your clothing!
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