Revive Your Spring Clothes (For Pennies!) With These 5 Tricks
After months in storage, our spring clothes, shoes, and jewelry could use a refresh. Here, find the easy, affordable pro tips to restore them to their former glory.
Lift jewelry tarnish with a pencil eraser.
Copper and silver-plated jewelry can oxidize from body oils or humidity changes, causing the metal on your necklace to develop green spots. To remove them: Gently rub the spots with a pencil eraser (avoid rubbing gems), says Carrie Higgins, author of Organization Hacks (Buy from Amazon, $11.99) and the Making Lemonade Blog. The rubber instantly buffs away any tarnish!
Remove lint and pet hair with a mega roller.
If dresses, tops, shorts, and other items have collected dust or pet hair in storage and you have lots of items that need de-linting, speed up the process by turning a paint roller into an extra-large lint roller! Just adhere and wrap duct tape, sticky side out, around a clean roller, spin it over your clothes, and voilà.
Bonus Tip: Place a Fur Zapper in your washing machine (Buy from Chewy, $10.99). This nifty tool sticks to the inside wall of the machine and collects lint as your clothes wash!
Nix sneaker odors with citrus peels.
Sneakers smell a little off? Try dropping in a few lemon peels, colorful side up, and let sit overnight. The white pith absorbs moisture and odor, while the citrus scent freshens the shoes, notes Becky Rapinchuk, founder of the Clean Mama website. Also smart: To protect sneakers from rain, rub an unlit white tea light candle over the fabric, then use a blowdryer set on high to melt the wax; let dry. The wax forms an invisible barrier that staves off water!
Reshape sun hats with a quick spritz.
Has your favorite hat been squashed or flattened out of shape while sitting in a box all winter? Higgins’ advice: Fill a spray bottle with water, lightly mist down the hat inside and out, then set your hair dryer to low heat and use it to partially dry the hat. To finish, wear the hat for an hour or two. As it dries, the hat will form correctly to the shape of your head, smoothing out any wrinkles in the process.
Freshen musty clothes with a vodka splash.
To lift odors from dry-clean-only spring clothes at home, fill a spray bottle with 1 ⁄2 cup of water, 1 ⁄4 cup of vodka and 5 drops of lavender essential oil. Then, use it to lightly mist the garments, says Rapinchuk. The alcohol kills odor-causing mold and bacteria, and the oil’s scent refreshes while its antibacterial properties sanitize — all without harming fabrics!
A version of this article originally appeared in our print magazine, Woman’s World.
