100& viscose shirt, says do not wash

[southeastastra]

am i meant to take it the dry cleaners?? can i not just hand wash it? what will happen to it, had lots of viscose things that have been ok in wash

I would hand wash it in cool water. Have never known viscose to be troublesome, and seriously are you going to manage to dry clean it every time you want to wear it....might just as well bite the bullet now. Its bound to be fine and you save on the dry cleaning!!! Well that's the approach i would use....

Viscose can shrink horribly! I have a sewing book here that says "Viscose shrinks quite a bit, even over multiple washings..." and they recommend washing the fabric 3 times before cutting out the pattern. Most clothing made out of normally washable fabric but that states dry clean only is because they don't use prewashed/preshrunk fabric, very annoying.

Put it in on a hand wash cycle and it should be ok

I had a friend who hung her viscose dress up on the picture rail in her dining room, it slipped off and ended up in her goldfish tank. It shrank to teeny weeny proportions, I don't think I'd risk it.

As pp have said, it'll depend on whether the fabric was pre-shrunk or not. I suspect it was and they're covering their backs but obv if it says dry clean only then who knows...?

If it were me then I'd hand wash it and take the risk, because the alternative would be it hanging unwashed and unloved over the back of a chair for months.

I happily chuck my viscose items in a 40deg wash and to date not seen any dramatic shrinkage. But then I will only dry clean items if absolutely essential - essentially that means wool items like a jacket or coat. Don't like dry cleaning chemicals and don't like spending a fortune in dry cleaning - especially if adds up to said item's price after 3-4 rounds.

I will actively check labels for dry clean and reject clothes if they don't look like they'll survive the washing machine. Just recently washed a 'dry clean only' outdoor jacket and turned out excellent, used synthetics cycle on machine. I did have a basket of 'must hand wash these' and just never got round to it, decided a few years ago that I've got better things to do and can't be bothered . Also a great believer in the protective powers of a net washbag .

On the other hand I don't throw everything in the dryer, hang up lots of things to air-dry and work my way through a big pile of ironing every week or so. Go figure .