Cleaning & Washing Your Fursuit

 

General Rules:

• Always use a light soap, like Dawn liquid soap. The one with the duckling on it is our recommendation.

• Never use excessive force when hand washing fur. Do not pull on seams.

• Do not leave fur in water longer than necessary.

• Do NOT use a hand dryer to dry fur unless there is a cold or cool air option. YOU CAN MELT THE FUR THIS WAY.

• Do NOT wash your fursuit in a washing machine. The only use you can get out of a washing machine in regards to washing a fursuit is the “SPIN CYCLE” ONLY for getting the excess water out of your bodysuit after hand-washing. If your washing machine cannot be set to spin cycle only, DO NOT USE IT FOR WASHING OR DRYING A FURSUIT.

 

Handpaws

• Remove the inner glove (if your handpaws include them) and set aside. You can clean these how you would normally clean gloves. They’re pretty durable.

• For the fur gloves, hand wash them in warm (not hot) soapy water.

• Rinse with warm or cold water until there are no more suds coming out.

• Squeeze out all the water you can.

• Leave to air dry in a dry, preferably cool area. (This will take a day or more.)

 

Head

• To keep the inside of your head clean, we recommend always wearing a balaclava.

• If the inside of your fursuit head gets dirty, use a lightly damp rag or a spray like febreeze to very lightly clean the inside foam and then let air dry.

• Fur on the outside can be cleaned with a lightly soapy rag to gently rub clean specific areas that need spot cleaning.

• Never submerge your fursuit head in water or use a lot of water. It may ruin the glue, eyes, or be impossible to dry in certain places.

 

Tail

• Similar to the head, spot clean dirty fur areas with a lightly damp, soapy rag.

• Spot rinse with a not soapy damp rag and then let air dry.

 

Bodysuit

• NOTE: If you have bodysuit padding, or a tail on your bodysuit filled with foam, and it is removable, remove it before attempting to wash your bodysuit. Foam should not be washed unless absolutely necessary. If you cannot remove the foam, do not submerge it in water. Spot wash the dirty areas.

• NOTE 2: If you do need to wash foam padding, make sure you carefully and lightly squeeze out all soapy water and cold rinse water so that the foam is as dry as possible before keeping it in front of a fan immediately after rinsing to reduce drying time as it takes a long time to dry foam and it needs to be dried completely.

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Steps:

• Zip up your bodysuit before washing and place into a bathtub.

• Fill the bathtub with slightly warm, soapy water. Use the light, not harsh soap recommended in the General Rules

• Lightly apply a little extra soap and scrub spots on your bodysuit that get extra wear, like your underarms, crotch, and any spots that may have gotten dirty during wear.

• After a light scrubbing and letting all of the fursuit get water on it, drain the bathtub of water. Press out any remaining liquid from the bodysuit. You will have to wash out the soap from fur that still has soap on it. This will take a bit of time. Make sure to get out as much water and soap as possible. A little soap on some fur won’t ruin it.

• IMPORTANT STEP! To dry the bodysuit, you can hang it up and air dry it from this point. Note that this will take longer than the washing machine method described in the next step. If you choose to do this, make sure to brush your bodysuit fur down every few hours so as to prevent a wavy nature to your fur when it dries.

• Faster method, but BE CAREFUL: Using a washing machine (NOT A DRYER) put your wet, clean bodysuit carefully into a washing machine. Set the machine to SPIN CYCLE. SPIN. CYCLE. ONLY. If your machine does not have this setting DO NOT USE THIS METHOD. This method will spin the bodysuit in the machine so that all of the water is pulled out of the fur. After the cycle finishes, remove the bodysuit and hang it up, giving it a brush. Every few hours afterwards, give the whole suit another good brushing, so as to prevent a wavy nature to your fur when it dries. Optionally, you can put a fan in front of the suit. Hang up the suit in a dry area. You may also use this method on handpaws.