A Lesson Learned About Storing Wedding Dresses

Another year has gone by which has yielded new experiences, interesting facts and challenging situations. I thought I would share with you at least one interesting lesson I learned this year.

If you are storing your wedding dress, whether you're keeping it for the memories or are planning on passing it down to a future generation, be aware that there is the possibility of mysterious stains appearing on the fabric after it has been cleaned a couple of times and sometimes decades later. What is the cause? The oxidation of sugar could be the culprit.

The sugars found in foodstuffs and beverages such as fruit juices, soft drinks, champagne, wine, desserts and candy can affect the fabric of the dress. Most of these things are consumed at a typical wedding. And here's the interesting part: at first these stains are invisible to the eye. When heat is introduced from repeated care or even if the dress has just been stored for years, the sugar stain oxidizes and discolors the fabric!

The passage of time makes it likely that a consumer will not remember that something may have been splashed on her or she dropped a little of her dessert or even trailed the dress through a drip on the dancefloor so when the stain appears years later, it cannot be accounted for.

Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that these stains can be removed so if you take it to your drycleaners to have spot work done on it, don't be surprised if the stains have not disappeared.

Although worrying whether your dress is going to oxidize ten years from now is probably not going to be a top subject on a bride's mind come her wedding day, a preventative measure would be to remove the sugar source immediately after realizing something has spilled on the dress, even if it is clear when it dries. Hopefully, I can remember this for my wedding!

Chloe L. Hudson - Contents Department

Comments

[summer@championcsi.com]

Very interesting - I always wondered where those mystery stains came from.

[admin]

Yikes...I remember cake tumbling down the front of my dress at our wedding.