TAKING CARE OF A COSTUME

It is better to spot clean marks than do a total clean. As complete washing of your costume can fade some colors. Sparkles and silvery accessories can come off or lose glitter after washing.

If you have a stain or lipstick mark, treat with a spot clean fabric stain remover such as Sard.
Spray the immediate area only, leave for a few minutes as directed and rub the soiled mark gently, normally it will disappear. A very little amount of water may be needed. Be gentle. If you absolutely have to wash all of the costume, take care of a costume by using cold water and hand wash with a mild detergent.

If children are needing to use deodorant, find one which doesn't leave stains on clothes/costumes, and use to ensure clothes don't need to be washed because of this.

To store costumes, buy a suit bag, hang the costume on a hanger in the bag and store in a wardrobe. These clothes bags are great to transport costumes to and from performances, as they keep costumes clean, separate from others' and you can keep all accessories together in the one bag.

Don't forget to label everything, bag, costume and accessories. This is ideal for competition dance costumes.

If you have young children and you hang costumes in your childs wardrobe, supervise playtimes with other children to make sure the costumes are not used for dress ups. They are much too expensive for that! Of course, once a costume is no longer needed, you might like to keep them then as dress ups.

If you have several costumes needed at one time for a concert or competition, a wonderful item to invest in is a small, transportable hanging rack. This way you can then set yourself up at your place of performance, the costumes will be hanging and not laid over chairs, or on the ground etc, risking getting creased and dirty.

Most general stores sell them or try Ebay. A wonderful rack on the market is a folding one, which won't take up any room at home and is so much easier to transport.

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