How to remove pilling from a sweater at home

Pel­lets appear from fric­tion — for exam­ple, when wear­ing clothes, wash­ing them, throw­ing the straps of a bag or back­pack. Loose, long pile fab­rics are espe­cial­ly prone to pilling. Most often, unat­trac­tive hair­balls occur in low-qual­i­ty fab­rics, as well as in flan­nel and coarse knit wool. In addi­tion, fab­rics with man­u­fac­tur­ing defects are sus­cep­ti­ble to pilling. Also, hair­balls often occur due to fac­to­ry defects.

What­ev­er the cause of sweater pilling, reg­u­lar­ly remove them from your clothes and then it will look neat and tidy.

Ways to quickly remove pilling from a sweater

We offer sev­er­al effec­tive ways to quick­ly remove the pel­lets from the sweater, return­ing it to its orig­i­nal appear­ance.

The pellet machine

Today you can buy an inex­pen­sive machine for remov­ing pel­lets. The trim­mer quick­ly and eas­i­ly removes hair­balls, regard­less of the fab­ric. The removal is uni­form, the pro­ce­dure does not dam­age the tis­sue. It is enough to place the thing on a flat sur­face and walk on it with a type­writer.

To pre­vent stretch­ing of the fab­ric, it is rec­om­mend­ed to move in the same direc­tion.

Pumice from pellets

Man­u­fac­tur­ers offer spe­cial pumice stones to remove pilling from clothes. It is not rec­om­mend­ed to use an ordi­nary stone, as there is a risk of dam­ag­ing the thing. It is nec­es­sary to lay out the sweater on a flat hor­i­zon­tal sur­face and care­ful­ly walk the pumice stone along the fibers with­out press­ing. The move­ment must be in one direc­tion.

Fine sandpaper

Walk care­ful­ly over the sur­face of the sweater so as not to ruin the fab­ric. In no case do not apply force when press­ing the prod­uct.

Ini­tial­ly, it may seem that using sand­pa­per is guar­an­teed to ruin the fab­ric. How­ev­er, the struc­ture of the sand­pa­per con­sists of many small grains of baked pow­der. It pen­e­trates every­thing that is locat­ed above the main plane. The min­i­mum grit size of the sand­pa­per should be 120.

By the way, bread­crumbs can also be used accord­ing to the same prin­ci­ple, if noth­ing else was at hand. There are many pores in the dried crust of bread, catch­ing the pel­lets and pulling them out. It is nec­es­sary to gen­tly draw a crack­er in a cir­cu­lar motion over the place where the pel­lets accu­mu­late.

Razor

A reg­u­lar razor also does a good job with spools. It is advis­able to take an already used razor, and not a new one, since with one care­less move­ment the fab­ric will be cut. It is nec­es­sary to lay out the sweater on a flat sur­face above the light source. The blade should be passed close to the fab­ric, but with­out touch­ing it. As a result, you will cut off the pro­trud­ing woolen lumps, but the sweater itself will be safe and sound.

You can­not use a razor if the sweater is made of long-haired fab­ric.

Stationery knife

The pro­ce­dure is the same as when using a razor. It is nec­es­sary to move care­ful­ly, close to the sur­face, along the fibers of the sweater. Cut pel­lets along the direc­tion must be col­lect­ed by hand and dis­card­ed.

Comb

To remove pilling from a sweater with a comb, you need to take a plas­tic comb with not sharp, fre­quent teeth. Lay the sweater on a flat sur­face and light­ly move the comb over it, grab­bing the hair­balls.

Scotch

The method is suit­able for a smooth sweater, where the pel­lets do not hold tight­ly. If the prod­uct is made of long-haired wool, then you will need to use a dif­fer­ent method. So, you can not use adhe­sive tape on the sur­face of a mohair sweater: oth­er­wise, there is a risk of pulling out the pile, which will lead to unpleas­ant bald spots.

Pro­ce­dure:

1. unwind 10 cm of tape;

2. cut off the tape and stick it on the sweater;

3. smooth the adhe­sive tape well;

4. pull the tape sharply and tear it off.

As a result, you will quick­ly elim­i­nate the pel­lets from the sur­face of the sweater.

Roller with sticky tape

The prin­ci­ple of oper­a­tion resem­bles the use of ordi­nary adhe­sive tape, but the roller is much more con­ve­nient. It is enough for him to walk on the sur­face of the sweater, as he will imme­di­ate­ly col­lect all the spools, addi­tion­al­ly “tak­ing” dust, pet hair, stuck hair, etc. with him.

Nail scissors

This method is suit­able for expen­sive items, as it pro­vides accu­rate removal of pel­lets, but at the same time it is time con­sum­ing. Dumped lumps are elim­i­nat­ed one by one.

Atten­tion! It is impos­si­ble to cut off the pel­lets with scis­sors if the sweater is made of nat­ur­al silk or oth­er del­i­cate fab­rics.

Unnecessary toothbrush

If the sweater is made of mate­r­i­al with a long nap, then a tooth­brush will help get rid of the spools. It is enough to care­ful­ly hold it along the pile.

Hard washcloth

It is nec­es­sary to take a new hard wash­cloth, pass­ing it along the fibers of the sweater. You don’t need to wet it.

Sponge for washing dishes

If a lot of small pel­lets have formed on the sweater, it is nec­es­sary to man­u­al­ly stretch the prob­lem areas of the prod­uct and walk over them with the hard side of the dish­wash­ing sponge.

Liquid products

There are spe­cial liq­uid prod­ucts designed to elim­i­nate spools. On the label of such prod­ucts it is indi­cat­ed that they soft­en the fibers of fab­rics. It is enough to wash a sweater with spools sev­er­al times with the addi­tion of this prod­uct, and the spools will be com­plete­ly elim­i­nat­ed.

Dry cleaning

You can clean an expen­sive sweater from pel­lets in a pro­fes­sion­al dry clean­er. Spe­cial­ists will not only remove the pel­lets from the sur­face of the prod­uct, but will also process it to pre­vent sim­i­lar prob­lems in the future.

How to prevent pimples

There are sev­er­al life hacks that will help pre­vent the occur­rence of pel­lets in the future:

1. Wash the sweater accord­ing to the cycle indi­cat­ed by the man­u­fac­tur­er on the prod­uct label. Turn it inside out before plac­ing it in the drum to pre­vent fric­tion between the sweater and the drum. It is also advis­able to place the prod­uct in a spe­cial mesh for wash­ing.
2. If the fab­ric allows, use con­di­tion­er. Thanks to this tool, the fibers soft­en and straight­en.
3. You should not dry the sweater in the machine — due to auto­mat­ic dry­ing, the prod­uct rubs against the drum.
4. If you car­ry bags, then buy prod­ucts with a wide, padded shoul­der strap. Anoth­er option is to car­ry the bag in your hand. Back­packs and tight straps quick­ly dam­age the sweater in the shoul­der area.
5. If the sweater has pock­ets, do not keep your hands in them, oth­er­wise the mate­r­i­al around will fall off.
6. If stains appear on the sur­face of the sweater, use a stain remover. It is impos­si­ble to wash the dirt man­u­al­ly.
7. If pel­lets began to appear on the sweater, then it is impos­si­ble to soak it in hot water — such tem­per­a­tures lead to defor­ma­tion of the fab­rics.
8. Buy only high-qual­i­ty sweaters, on the sur­face of which spools rarely appear. When buy­ing a prod­uct, care­ful­ly inspect it: if it has long puffs of thread, then this thing is prone to spool­ing.

After you have tak­en the sweater out of the machine, you can not twist it, as this degrades the qual­i­ty of the fab­ric. Gen­tly wring out the water, then lay the sweater on a flat sur­face. Hang­ing it is not rec­om­mend­ed, oth­er­wise it will stretch.