How to look after a silk saree in Bangalore

A silk saree is not a difficult garment to look after, but it is an unforgiving one. Cotton recovers from most mistakes. Silk records them: a water ring stays visible, a hot iron flattens the weave permanently, and a fold left in place for a year becomes a split along the crease. Most of the damage people bring to a cleaner was not done while the saree was being worn. It was done in the months it spent in the cupboard afterwards.

None of what follows needs a product you do not already own. It needs an hour of attention after the event, and a decision about which marks you are not going to touch.

The first hour after you take it off

Do not fold it and put it away. A worn saree is carrying body heat, perspiration and whatever was in the air at the function. Sealed into a cupboard, those set into the fibre and, months later, become the faint yellow-brown patches along the shoulder and under the arms that no amount of cleaning fully lifts.

1. 1.Hang it over a wide wooden or padded hanger, or lay it over a clean cotton sheet, and leave it somewhere shaded with moving air for two to three hours.
2. 2.Keep it out of direct sun. Sunlight fades dyed silk quickly, and it fades unevenly, which looks worse than fading everywhere.
3. 3.Unpin everything. Safety pins and brooches leave rust marks on silk, and rust does not come out.
4. 4.Shake the pleats out rather than pressing them back in. You want the fabric relaxed, not creased in a new place.
5. 5.Only then fold it, loosely, and only once it is completely dry to the touch.

Stains: what to blot, and what to leave alone

There is one useful thing to do to a fresh stain on silk: lift whatever is sitting on top of the fabric with something dry. Press a clean white cotton cloth or a tissue onto the mark and let it absorb. Do not rub, and work from the outside of the mark inwards rather than from the middle out, which pushes the edge into clean fabric.

• •Water is not a rescue. A wet patch on silk dries into a visible ring, so adding water to a small stain usually replaces one mark with a larger one.
• •Salt, talcum powder, toothpaste and lemon cause the most avoidable damage. Salt and lemon are acidic enough to lift dye, and powder works its way into the weave.
• •Turmeric, oil, ghee, coffee and wine are a cleaner's work. They need solvent rather than water, and home attempts are how a small mark becomes a permanent pale halo.
• •Perspiration is the one worth acting on quickly, because it keeps working on the fibre while the saree sits. Air the saree, then have it cleaned rather than spot-treated.
• •Zari and metallic thread must never be rubbed. The coating scratches off and the thread underneath goes dull and grey.

Storing a saree through the monsoon

Bangalore is kind to silk for most of the year and hard on it for about three months. Through the monsoon the problem is not rain, it is the humidity sitting inside a closed cupboard, which is where mildew starts and where a musty smell settles into the fabric.

• •Wrap each saree in unbleached cotton, or an old cotton dhoti or pillowcase. Cotton lets the silk breathe and stops dyes transferring between pieces.
• •Never store silk in a plastic cover for months. Plastic traps moisture against the fabric, and on a zari border it speeds up tarnishing.
• •Refold along different lines two or three times a year. A fold held in one place weakens the fibre until the crease eventually splits, and that is a repair rather than a clean.
• •Keep naphthalene balls in a corner of the shelf rather than inside the fold, so they never touch the fabric.
• •Heavy zari, kanjeevaram and heirloom pieces are better rolled than folded if you have the space, because a roll has no sharp creases at all.
• •Air the cupboard itself on a dry day. A shelf that smells musty passes that on to everything wrapped inside it.

When to have it dry cleaned

Silk is cleaned in solvent rather than water, which is the reason dry cleaning exists as a separate service at all. Luxere cleans silk in a hydrocarbon solvent and finishes it with steam on a tension finisher, so the weave is not pressed flat the way a domestic iron flattens it. Dry cleaning starts at ₹199 per garment, and the full list is on the pricing page.

• •After any function where the saree was worn for several hours, whether or not you can see a mark.
• •Before long storage rather than after it. A clean saree keeps; a worn one develops marks while it waits.
• •As soon as there is oil, food, turmeric or a drink on it, rather than at the end of the season.
• •Once a year for a piece you wear occasionally, so perspiration never gets the chance to set.

Heavily worked, embellished or heirloom sarees are not a standard dry cleaning job and are not priced as one. Those go through Premium Care, which is quoted per garment after somebody has looked at the piece, because what is safe for a plain crepe is not safe for loose zari, glued stones or a very old weave.

What to tell the cleaner

Thirty seconds of information changes the result more than anything else on this page. Say what the fabric is if you know it, point at every mark rather than leaving them to be found, name what caused each one, and flag anything fragile: loose zari, a tear, glued stones, a blouse hook, a previous repair. If a piece is sentimental, say that too, so it is handled on the cautious setting rather than the efficient one.

And ask, before the saree is collected, whether anything cannot be promised. An honest “we can clean the fabric but that ring may not come out completely” is worth far more than a confident answer you discover was wrong when the saree comes back.