How to care for your curtains?

Curtains are an integral part of every home. They help in keeping out the harsh sunlight while letting in natural light. They are ideal to prevent dust from getting in as well as maintaining some privacy.

Now there is a plethora of choices available in the market, but we believe cotton and linen are the best material choices for your home furnishings. They are 100% natural, breathable, versatile and absolutely environment friendly. Did you know cotton decomposes in less than 5 months, while a polyester will take anywhere between 20 years to 200 years to decompose.

We have been designing, crafting and producing cotton curtains for about 5 years now. We often get a question asked! It’s ‘how to care for the curtains’ and ‘What is the ideal wash care routine for cotton and linen curtains?’ So, here we are listing out some of our recommended best practices for caring for your cotton and linen curtains.

Caring for cotton curtains is relatively simple. Here are a steps to care for them and ensure longevity of life:

1. As a simple first step, we recommend you dust or vacuum your curtains regularly to remove any dust or dirt that may have accumulated on the surface. This will help prevent discolouration and keep them looking fresh. This will help in extending the wash cycle.
   
2. If your curtains have wrinkles or creases, you can steam them or iron them on a low heat setting so they look crisp
3. If your curtains need to be cleaned, it’s best to have them professionally dry cleaned. This ensures a longer life time of the product. Look for a reputed dry cleaner and have them cleaned. This will ensure that they are cleaned properly without causing any damage and having less shrinkage to the fabric. 
4. If you do choose to wash them at home, use a gentle detergent and cold water, and avoid using bleach or fabric softeners. You can hand wash them or machine wash in gentle wash settings. Do not wash them in hot water, this may lead to color fade.
5. If your curtains have any hardware on them, remove them if you can. For example the eyelet curtains can be washed with the eyelets, but the pleated and channel tape curtain, please remove the plastic of hooks and then put them for wash. 
6. This is one of the most important care tips, do not dry them in direct sunlight. Dry them in shade and iron them in low heat. 
7. Coming to the most enquired about topic, will cotton curtains shrink. Being a natural fibre, most of the cotton fabrics are susceptible to shrinkage. We have to understand the nature of the fibre, the benefits it offers and hence accept shrinkage as a natural characteristic of the product. But do not panic, once they are washed, make sure to iron them. Ironing not only removes the wrinkles, but also makes the fibres elongate a bit. Once they are ironed most of the curtains in the market (all our curtains) have extra fabric at the hem of the curtain. You can simply open the stitch at the bottom to extend them. You can then align the curtains and then stitch them back (You can hand sew or machine sew them). 
8. You can use a steamer on your curtains instead of iron, this will remove most of the wrinkles.
9. If you have cotton curtains with a lot of embellishments or accessories, it is best to have them professionally dry cleaned so that the decorations are not damaged during cleaning.
   

We hope these tips prove to be helpful for you the way it has for us. We do believe you can keep your cotton curtains looking all new for a long time by following these.