How to wash your belly dance costume!

Do you know you need to wash your belly dance costumes?

Dancing every night you need to have many costumes. But it is comum you repeat your costumes from one week to other. When the costume is new, the fabric and beats are so shiny but it never smells good, even when just come from the designers. A mix with incense, shisha and cigaret makes even a brand new costume smells HORRIBLE!!! So what you do? Perfume... :-) and you keep using it adding make up and sweaty. GOSH!!! 

Because is new costume we refuse to wash, as it looks clean. But trust me, it is not clean.

Fresh air or bacterial spray helps for a little while till the day you go to work and you can smell your colleagues costumes, so you realise that we all should wash more frequently. I was thinking, make up, shisha, food smells, sweaty and sometime liquids on the floor that your costume wiped up. Gosh, time to wash all my costumes!

But how is the best way to wash? My friends wash on the wash machine, that I have tried and I confess that is scared when you have a pretty expensive costume. So I washed by hand, one by one and it was a good experience. 

See below how I did. so you can wash your costumes too and won't smell like my friend ;-))))

I washed all inside a plastic box in the bathroom, but you can also wash on the sink or bath.

1- Fill the sink or bath with clean warm water. Cold won't take all stain off and too hot can damage fine fabrics and crystals. 

2- Add soap or wash capsules. I used Surf with essential oils capsules. It is small plastic capsules filled with a liquid to wash your cloths in the wash machine but once you sink it in the water it melts and mix with the water. I liked the work it did and its smells sooo good and fresh.

 3- Sink your costume in the water and start to wash by hand paying more attention where you have make up and stains. Allow the product clean your costume at the same time use your hands to help the stains off. Always very delicate moves.

 4- You are going to see the water very dirty, that is a mix with dirty and fabric colour. Change with clean water as many times as necessary. Just use soap in the first wash afterwards just clean water to take the soap off. You might need to change about 3 times with clean water. Don't worry if still after 3 washes the water is still a bit coloured, it might be the fabric colour.

 4- It will be very wet, so just hang somewhere in the bath and allow it dry a bit, naturally.

5- Once it dropped all water you can hang your costume close to a open window and allow it dry naturally with fresh air. It might take 3 days to dry completely but I am planning to leave it drying for 5 days. If you store your costume still a bit wet it will create mold, you might don't see but certainly will smell.

 6- When you hang your costume also check if you need to fix anything. Always is necessary some sewing or replacements. So before use again make sure you fix all necessary.

Remember that using perfume every night also make your costume smells bad after long time. So I strongly suggest you all to wash your costumes every 3 month or less, if you use regularly certain costumes. 

I hope this help you to keep your costumes clean and smelling like flower flowers. 

PS. I hope my colleague read this :-/