Large old(ish) teddy bear - how to clean. HELP!

[StarGazer666]

Hello Everyone,

I am not a parent but a devoted uncle to my nieces and nephews, one of my nieces left a large teddy bear round my house earlier, which she takes everywhere with her (his name is Bhaji) and I have noticed a few old random bits of hardened fur on his various body parts, (I reckon the hardened fur has been like that for a couple months).I have also noticed where the fur is flattened on a large part of his back. I want to surprise her with a nice, clean and very soft furry friend

I don’t want to ruin or damage him, and I don’t have a washing machine

On his label you can read that:
Contents: Polyester Fibres
Cover Pile: 100% acrylic
Substrate: 100%polyester
The symbols he has are: machine wash at 40 C, DO NOT bleach, iron or dry clean. And can be tumble dried

Any comments are greatly appreciated.

Thank you, Daniel Murphy

P.S. Bhaji is as tall as 5x330ml cans stacked, the length of front/back is 3x330ml cans lying sideways and so is the width of the sides

Honestly I wouldn't wash him. Children can be very sensitive about their bears and if you wash him, you'll remove the smell which she might find comforting.

Do not wash or clean as it will most likely completely change the look and smell of the bear and not be the comfy and familiar cuddly bear she cherishes.

What they said ^^

Please, please do not wash him and certainly not in the washing.machine. I am still traumatised by watching my beloved ThreadBear disintegrate before my eyes in our machine.
I was 50+ at the time as was ThreadBear. DH found me sobbing uncontrollably. Evetually the machine stopped, we rescued him, but he was all lost stuffing 😞😞

Please don't wash the bear.

My daughters elephant is so important, I can wash him as can my Ex-MIL but no-one dares to as she rejects him.

Hey everyone, update on Bhaji, she said she had started to find the hard fur annoying, as she contastly picks at it and doesn’t want to make him worse but i have been reading online for her behalf and it says you can hand wash, like i said in the post, I don’t have a washing machine,

Any more comments is appreciated

I have brushed such hard bits with a scrubbing brush, dry or dipped in warm soapy water, and that's worked. Also tried baby wipes or dettol type wipes to soften up the dirt first, sometimes that's enough to get it all off. If the patches of fur got v wet I dried with a hairdryer.

24 hours in the freezer kills mites.

Thanks again for your comments, i will try your approach Cordillera