Mink hats are fairly common. This fur is moisture-proof and can be worn for many years, but it also eventually becomes dirty, and this brings the question: how to clean the mink hat and restore its initial sheen and fluffiness.
Shampoo
You can refresh and clean your mink fur at home, in your own bathroom, just using soap lather.
- Squeeze some shampoo into a bowl or basin.
- Make shampoo lather with a warm water spray from the shower head.
- Then dip a sponge in the lather and clean the mink hat with it.
- Wipe off the remaining lather with the same sponge wetted with clean water.
You can use liquid soap instead of shampoo, or better yet, just take a liquid detergent for washing wool and silk clothes. That’s an easy way of getting rid of ingrained dirt at home.
Make sure to be very careful when cleaning the hat that way, and don’t wet the fur all the way through.
If the inner (flesh) side of hide will get fully wet, your hat can shrink after drying. Moreover, any fur stiffens and loses its elasticity after deep wetting.
Salt and other home remedies
You can also use another aid that’s available at any home.
- Dissolve a tablespoon of salt in a glass of water.
- Add some alcohol (2 or 3 tablespoons).
- Then soak a brush in this solution and clean the fur with it.
Any mink hat, including the white ones, can be cleaned at home with vinegar. To do this, dip a cotton swab in vinegar and gently run it over the fur, eliminating traces of dirt. Needless to say, vinegar is the most affordable cleaning agent at any home. It would be nice to treat the fur with glycerin solution afterward.
Whichever way you choose for cleaning the mink hat, you have to dry it only naturally, not using any heaters or hot hair dryers. You should not put your mink hat on the radiator. To prevent the fur from flattening, you can comb it with a soft coarse-toothed comb.
Specifics of cleaning light mink fur
The colors of minks bred for fur can vary greatly. There are black, reddish, brown, and very light tints of fur, and master designers successfully use these features when making fur garments. Women of all ages like wearing stylish white hats, but any traces of dirt are clearly visible on them. So, let’s find out how to clean a hat of white mink fur from all dust and dirt.
If you wear a mink hat in the city, urban smog and dust will inevitably make an impact on it. It is quite easy to clean this dirt from your hat, even at home.
- Strew the hat with white talcum powder.
- Slightly rub it in, as if you are gently hand-washing the hat.
- Wait 2 or 3 hours, shake out the talcum powder, and brush out whatever is left.
There are several variants: some use manna groats, hot bran, or starch. It is believed that starch is the best home aid for absorbing grease and dust. It may be used for cleaning any light-colored fur hat. To whiten slightly yellowed fur, you can use a well-known chemical called hydrogen peroxide, which you can find in your medicine chest. Dilute it with water and treat the hat with the resulting solution. It is recommended to sun-dry the hat so that the bleaching effect would be better. This method is suitable for cleaning almost all white furs.
However, if yellowing is quite obvious, there is nothing that can help.
| Cleaning Agent | Effect |
| Shampoo, liquid soap | Remove dirt |
| Salt, household ammonia | Eliminate grease and dust |
| Vinegar | Removes dirt and bad smell |
| Glycerin | Softens, shines |
| Talc, starch, flour | Absorb dirt |
How to clean the lining
And now let’s figure out how to clean the lining of the mink hat at home. It becomes dirty quite often, and this is due to the behavior of sweat and oil glands on our head. The lining is detached and washed in warm water with detergent. It is better to replace a heavily worn lining.
Pull the hat itself over a jar and clean it with a brush dipped in an ammonia or peroxide solution.
If you do not want to detach the lining at home, you can clean the hat on the inside the same way you do on the outside, using just soap lather. Even if you do not remove some stains this way, you can refresh the fabric well, eliminating the bad smell.
It is worth mentioning that any fur requires special handling. You should not soak it, spray with perfume, or dry it at high temperatures. If it seems like you are unable to remove certain dirt, you can have the hat dry-cleaned, or take it to a professional fur dresser.