The first thing you should do to keep your suit looking great is to hang it properly. Over the years, cheap hangers will create permanent puckers in the shoulders of the suit coat. Look for a good quality wooden or padded hanger that is designed to hang a suit.
If you have a wool suit, you should also be concerned about preventing moth damage. Ideally, you should hang your suit in a cedar lined closet. However, few people have a closet that is lined with cedar. One alternative is to use mothballs, but they have a strong, distinctive smell that lingers after the suit leaves the closet. A more pleasant alternative is to keep your suit in a special storage bag, which is airtight and keeps moths out.
Of course, one of the reasons that moths and carpet bugs eat suits in the first place is because they are put away before they are cleaned. If you have a suit that is used only for one season, such as a lightweight summer suit, you should never put it away without having it cleaned even if it doesn’t look dirty. This is because a suit may look clean to you, but actually has sweat stains and skin flakes on it that simply are not visible to the human eye. They act like bug magnets.
Most dirty suits need to be dry cleaned, but sometimes people just don’t have time to run to the dry cleaners. Luckily, there are some products that enable people to clean their suits at home.
1. Home dry cleaning kits are a great way to freshen a suit that doesn’t need to have any deep cleaning done. However, you will need to be sure that you don’t end up shrinking a wool suit when you use these kits.
2. To spot clean a wool suit, you should always be sure to test any spot removers on a spot that isn’t noticeable before you use them. Don’t ever rub at a stain, since you could damage the fabric. Instead, blot the stain and then rinse it in cold water.
3. If your wool suit has picked up an unpleasant odor, but you need to wear it the next morning, try hanging it in the bathroom, turning on the shower for a few minutes, and then leaving it to air out overnight.
Finally, don’t be afraid to press your suit yourself. Just make sure that you use the steam setting and press the suit on the wrong side so that you don’t make the wool shiny.
