freshen your fringe! How to make long silk fringe look like new.

Fringe! It's glorious! It's wild and free! It's Stevie Nicks!

But o my god does it get tangled and funky looking? Yes it does. And tangled leads to wrinkled. And there's nothing worse than tangly, funky, wrinkly fringe.


You need to freshen that fringe.







I'm going to tell you two things right off the bat that you MUST accept if you are to be successful in detangling and straightening your fringe:

1. There is no quick or easy way to do this. Believe me when I tell you I have tried. It only leads to sadness and despair. This will take you at least a 1/2 hour, possibly more. 

2. When I say, "start from the bottom," I mean it. Start from the bottom. Don't be like me and resist this simple truth: trying to untangle the knot from the top will only make it worse. DON'T RESIST THIS TRUTH, people.

the offending tangly funky wrinkly fringe

big knot

First!
Detangle.

• Hang your garment on a clothesline or over a shower rod so the fringes are about at upper arm level. 
• Separate the bunches from one another.
• Choose your bunches.
• Starting from the bottom, remove the threads carefully from the tangle.

each of these knotted bunches of strands is a "bunch"

two bunches knotted together at the ends

starting from below the knot, pull each strand gently out of the tangle.

separated bunches

• Separate the threads in each bunch.
• Starting from the bottom, carefully pull the threads apart.
• Make sure every thread is untangled.

bunch tangled at the ends. here's the center point of the tangle. start from the bottom and gently pull threads apart.

separated strands

Second!

Straighten

• Wet the fringe.
• I use a spray bottle with water and a few drops of my linen spray to keep moths away and make it smell nice.

spritz your fringe!

spritzed

• Finger comb the fringe.
• Make sure there are no little loops or kinks. They WILL dry funky.

get all the little kinks and loops like this out by finger combing/pulling gently. these will look funky when dry.

• Trim the fringe.
• Let dry.
• Wear and be awesome!

trim it!

hang OUT OF THE WIND! to dry.

Next week, we'll talk about how to store fringed items so they don't get like this in the first place.

xxx