Different types of fabric sold by the Fabric manufacturer require different techniques of cleaning, washing, drying, and maintenance. Read this blog to know in details.

An essential part of ethnic fashion, the maintenance of fabrics is crucial to its care and well appearance. India has a glorious heritage of textiles, with the amalgamation of exquisite styles of embroidery and innovative techniques of embellishment. All this ensures that Indian clothing produced by the fabric manufacturers are highly exclusive in their fashion sense and therefore requires meticulous care and maintenance to keep them going for a long time.

Since there is no ultimate blanket rule for how you can take of the fabrics, it all depends on the raw material used and how it is spun, woven and stitched into apparel. Let us now discuss the different instructions which are recommended when it comes to maintaining and cleaning fabrics.

1. Embroidery fabrics – This is a high maintenance fabric since it consists of intricate thread work all over the surface. If there is mishandling, the threads can fray or start to come out, the colours might also start bleeding from the fabric. It is for these reasons that experts always advise to dry-clean these fabrics. For better results, you should gently hand wash them in lukewarm water or can even test it by washing one corner of the garment first. If the under cloth is made from silk or satin, dry cleaning is a prefered option.
2. Cotton – This fabric is very low maintenance. You can machine wash it as well as handwash it. Cotton fabrics do not come with any specific cleaning, drying or ironing instructions. However, if you have a block printed cotton fabric, you should handwash it with mild movements to prevent the fading of the colour. Remember not to expose the cloth to too much of sunlight or heat or else its quality will degrade.
3. Linen– Another extremely low maintenance fabric, linen material can be bought from the Firefly fabric store. To increase its durability and strength, you should preferably handwash it. Although some varieties of linen can be machine washed, you should avoid using hot water. While ironing, keep the temperature at a low setting.
4. Silk – Some very luxurious and pure varieties of silk like Banarasi, Kanchivaram, Chanderi silk and others should not be hand washed. However, the other kinds like Art silk, Jacquard silk, Uppada silk can be washed at home gently and with extreme care. Here some definite instructions should be followed such as:

• Do not machine wash
• Do not expose the fabric to perfumes, coarse detergents, sunlight, and heat. Wash only in lukewarm water and with chemical-free detergent
• Do the ironing on the reverse side
• Dry naturally by wrapping the fabric in a cloth
• In case of rigid stains, give it to a dry cleaner

5. Net– A very delicate and sheer fabric, outfits made from net material are usually embellished with gems and stones, patchwork and beads to decorate it. Therefore, cleaning it can be very tricky. If wrong practices are followed, you can degrade the fabric quality. Those fabrics which are blended or faux and bought from the Net fabric manufacturer can be washed by hand, gently and using a mild detergent. Alternatively, if you want to wash it inside the machine, you can put it on a gentle rinse cycle. But the most perfect and suitable way to clean and maintain net fabrics is by dry cleaning them, which minimizes the chances of tearing or damaging the stonework done on them.

To buy the best quality of fabrics, you can visit the store of “Firefly”, which is one of the renowned ethnic fabric retailers in Kolkata.