Garment Care: How to Deal with Lint!

Source: fontgraf / iStock / Getty Images Plus
One of my winter wardrobe essentials is a hoodie, it may be a basic fashion item but it’s comfortable, practical, and can be styled in different ways. However, hoodies tend to easily form those stubborn little flecks of fluff that find their way onto clothes somehow – these little flecks of fluff are called lint. Whenever my hoodie starts forming lint I immediately want to buy a new one. This Autumn/Winter season alone, I have bought 3 hoodies simply because the previous ones had formed lint balls. After purchasing the 3rd hoodie I said to myself “surely there is a way to prevent lint or remove it?” because constantly buying new hoodies is not cost-effective or sustainable. So I have done some research on what lint is, how to prevent it from forming on your clothes, and how to remove it. When you know what lint is, it becomes easier for you to deal with it and keep your clothes looking new and stops you from buying clothes unnecessarily
What is lint?
Lint is tiny fabric fibres that are shed from the edges of clothes, especially when you wash them or dry them in a washing machine. Wool and Cotton are the most common fibres that form lint, this explains why lint is commonly found on hoodies, sweaters, and knitwear. Lint is caused by friction which loosens fabric fibres, the fibres then settle and cling on the surface of clothes leaving your smooth clothing looking fluffy and fuzzy.
How to remove lint?
There are many ways to remove lint from your clothes, but one of the most common ways is using a lint roller which has a sticky surface that you can roll over lint-covered fabrics to pick up stray fibres. If you don’t have a lint roller you can use masking tape by wrapping the sticky side of the masking tape around a cylindrical object or your hand and then gently roll it up and down to remove the lint. Or you could just pull the lint off your clothes but that could be a time-consuming task.
Preventing lint
I don’t think you can fully prevent lint from forming on your clothes, but you can always put measures in place to reduce future build-up of lint:
1. Washing lint-attracting and lint-producing items separately
2. Wash clothes that are prone to attracting lint inside-out
3. Clean out your washing machine filters regularly
4. Separate clothes based on colours
Here are our two favourite lint rollers at the moment
Sources
Cleanipedia, 2021. What is lint made of? How to remove lint from clothes? [Online] Available at: https://www.cleanipedia.com/gb/clothing-care/what-is-lint-made-of.html [Accessed on 11 July. 2021]