Silk dress, safe to hand Wash?

[MoorMummy]

I’ve an unlined silk dress from Jaeger which could do with a freshen up , though it’s not dirty as such. It’s something I wear at work. Do you reckon it would be ok to do a cool hand wash in delicate laundry liquid ? I think it’s dry clean only on the label but with it being unlined I thought I could possibly chance it? Thoughts?

Many years ago I had an unfortunate incident with a shot silk dress. I spilt a bit of beer on it, thought I would rinse it off and ended up with a big water stain on it. Just saying......

I would be washing the full dress, I know you can’t spot clean silk. Hmmmm.

I wouldn't risk it, tbh.

It might be fine but the dry cleaner uses a kind of finishing treatment on it that gives it body so it presses well. I've never got my silk stuff looking a fraction as nice as they do. I think it depends on the texture of the silk. If it's crepe or a heavier silk I'd have it cleaned.

I wash silk shirts in cold water drop or two of shampoo.

Once dry wrap in a plastic bag and chuck in the freezer before a cool iron

It's not the silk itself which is the issue, it's more that for some reason non-fast dyes are often used on silk. Is there a bit of inside hem you could test for colour fastness?

I wash silk in the machine. I use silk & wool liquid detergent and put it on a cold hand wash cycle. It dries a bit crisp but softens right up when ironed.

I've never had a problem hand washing silk. You would have to do the whole thing.

It might look a little alarming when it is wet, but they have always looked lovely after being ironed.

If it has any special finish, there might be a problem...

I always wash silk myself.

I wash most in the machine on a wool programme, in a mesh bag for delicate items, using Persil wool and silk detergent.
These items are silk tops, some scarves, DvF dresses (they're a silk jersey type of fabric) and so on. I usually just wash them with other items like cashmere, wool and similar delicate things.

Other silk items, like Hermes scarves, I wash in a small bowl (I worry that they will catch on edges in the sink), quite cool water with a tiny bit of the same detergent. I only wash one item at a time like this.
This is because I don't want to have them in water for too long as I worry about colour running, especially because some of my scarves are vintage and/or a mix of dark and light colours.

I roll the items in (white) towels until mostly dry, then let the items fully dry lying, rather than hanging.

I then steam the item (before I had a steamer, I'd iron on low heat with a tea towel between the item and the iron).

As Errol says, it's the colour running that you have to worry about.

I think I’ll give it a bash . I was thinking cold water and appropriate detergent . It’s quite thin so I though I might hang it to drip dry . Thanks all

I use lukewarm water and special silk detergent and have been ok so far. The only thing is I don't want to damage it by squeezing the water out too enthusiastically so I have to carry a sodden lump of dress outside to drip dry - not great in winter!