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Can I Save My Yellowed Wedding Dress?

Bride N Queen Team | 18 July, 2022


          
            yellowed wedding dress

After your wedding ceremony, your lovely gown was probably forgotten in a closet or storage unit. However, keeping your beautiful gown in such locations for an extended time has disadvantages. Yellowing is one of those disadvantages.

Yellowing is a common problem that wedding gowns, including vintage wedding gowns, endure after being stored for a lengthy period. The main reason your gown turns yellow is because of exposure to sunlight and other sources of light. As time goes on, this exposure will cause the delicate fabrics of your gown to slowly change color from its original white hue to a light.

If you recently unearthed your vintage wedding gown and it's yellowed, a few things can be done to return it to its original glory. This article answers your questions regarding a yellowed wedding gown, how to have it restored, and how to avoid yellowing in the future.

What is a Yellowed Wedding Dress?

A yellowed wedding dress is a dress whose fabric has been discolored by exposure to light, heat, or chemicals. The degree of yellowing can vary from very light to very severe. Wedding dresses that are very yellowed may appear brown or even black.

Fabric yellowing is one of the textile sector's most prevalent and long-standing quality concerns. Fabric yellowing is highly detrimental for wedding dresses since they frequently occur in market whites and pastel tones. While wedding dresses are also subject to several other quality issues, such as fabric pilling, color bleeding, and poor seams, fabric yellowing seems to be the most common issue with wedding dresses.

When the fabric's original fibers deteriorate due to poor quality, they could become yellow over time. In this scenario, the white and pastel materials begin to break down, giving the traditional wedding gown a light-to-medium yellow tone. Other causes of yellowing include but are not limited to heat exposure, improper cleaning or storage, use of certain chemicals, etc.

Phenolic Yellowing

Even if you carefully place your dress in a plastic garment bag, you may still get phenolic yellowing. Many brides know that sunshine exposure is a significant cause of wedding dress yellowing, but few are aware that improper storage is as ample a problem for their wedding dresses.

Phenolic yellowing is caused by a chemical reaction between the materials in the garment bag and the chemicals within the plastic bag. When these two materials come into contact, they create a yellowing effect on the dress. If you store a typical wedding dress in a garment bag made of polyethylene (PE) or polypropylene (PP), you are more likely to experience this problem. This is why a wedding gown preservation kit from a reputable wedding gown preservation company like Laxa Cleaners Bride N Queen is strongly recommended.

Other Ways a Wedding Gown May Become Yellowed

Spills on Your Wedding Dress

Spills from transparent beverages like alcohol or soda will dry clean but oxidize and turn brown. They will then become brittle with time. Water-based spills will also cause water spots and can also lead to yellowing.

Spills from fat- or oil-based substances like food or makeup will cause permanent staining. Protein-based stains from blood, sweat or other body fluids will also cause permanent staining.

Chemical Additives

Chlorine, oils, animal fats, and waxes are a few chemicals that can cause wedding gown yellowing. The fabric used to make your wedding dress may have been treated with such chemicals during manufacturing, particularly as textile softeners.

Any combination of incorrect chemical formulation and long-term storage can begin to decompose. The breakdown of these chemicals causes the fabric to yellow. Furthermore, these chemicals can attract pollutants like dirt, dust, and oils from your hectic wedding day, which may accelerate the yellowing process.

Sunlight

The sun's ultraviolet rays can cause fabrics to yellow, especially if the garment is hung in direct sunlight for long periods. Repeated washings can also make a dress appear more yellowed.

Deterioration of the Fiber

Fibers in your gown may break down faster due to various external elements, such as direct sunlight, high humidity, or exposure to excessive heat. These factors have a negative influence in the long term, but fiber decay is not the most significant cause of your gown's yellowing.

Body Oils and Sweat

Your body oils and sweat can also cause your wedding dress to be yellow. The acids in your sweat will break down the fibers of your dress over time, causing it to be yellow. Furthermore, the oils in your skin will transfer to your dress and attract dirt and dust, which can also cause yellowing.

Washed Badly

If you don't wash your wedding dress properly, it will be yellow over time. It would help if you had your dress dry-cleaned by a professional to avoid damaging the fabric. If you do wash your dress at home, be sure to use mild detergent and cold water.

Sweat-stained Wedding Dress

Your dress interior may also discolor as a result of perspiration. Many wedding gowns are lined with acetate or polyester, which can be yellow when exposed to sweat. If you notice this, you must take your dress to a reliable wedding dress cleaning and preservation company as soon as possible.

Your wedding gown should be a keepsake; many brides see their future daughters wearing it at their weddings. But if it's yellowed, you may not want to pass it down. Fortunately, there is a solution to restore your yellowed wedding gown. This article offers several suggestions and a tried-and-true approach for renewing an old wedding dress.

How Can Yellowed Wedding Dresses Be Saved?

Can I Save My Yellowed Wedding Dress?

Many brides wonder how they can restore and preserve their wedding gowns on their own. Unfortunately, there are no DIY preservation kits to remove yellow stains from a gown that will guarantee you a high probability of success. You may end up just doing more harm than good. Hence, the best way to ensure that your gown is handled with care is to take it to a wedding dress cleaning and preservation company that specializes in cleaning and preserving wedding gowns. When it comes to wedding dress preservation and restoration of a yellowed wedding gown, there are a lot of variables to consider.

For example, most of the staining on your wedding gown is unnoticeable to the naked eye. Your dress may appear in excellent condition now. Still, those undiscernible sweat stains or sugar stains will become significant, ugly dark brown patches that eat away at the fabric's chemical structure over time. At that point, you may be staring at irreparable damage to your cherished gown. The only way to guarantee that your gown won't yellow or stain is to have it cleaned and preserved by a professional before storing it away.

Laxa Cleaners' Bride N Queen's Painstaking Restoration and Preservation Procedures

Luxury Wedding Dress Cleaning & Preservation Package

The most thorough resource you'll discover is choosing the procedure developed by our Wedding Gown Preservation Company. Our wedding gown cleaning staff is only interested in one thing and one thing alone: removing stains from your dress while also restoring it to its original condition. We have a wide variety of treatments for different types of fabric and can adjust our processes to match the specific needs of your gown.

Our team will work diligently to clean every inch of your dress, paying special attention to areas that are typically more difficult to clean, such as the underarms, bust, and hem. The steps in our 15-step wedding dress cleaning and preservation process include the following processes:

Fabric Analysis of The Wedding Dress

In this phase, the fibers of your garment are identified to see how they will hold up to various cleaning procedures. This is incredibly important, as some fabrics are much more delicate than others and require a different approach.

While the label on your gown will generally describe the various textiles, fabrics in older gowns are often identified using other distinct processes developed by our company's fabric specialists.

Fiber Analysis

What's more essential than the materials your dress is composed of is the condition those fibers are in. For example, if your garment is composed of natural fibers that have begun to yellow or degrade, it will require a different cleaning method than if the same dress were made of synthetic materials. This examination also allows our specialists to identify and treat specific problem areas on your gown before they proceed with the cleaning process.

Stain Evaluation

The next step is to look for any areas on your dress that may require special attention. This is the time when our team will identify and treat any spots or stains that may need a bit more care. Deep stains, for example, necessitate considerable thought. Treating the stain aggressively might do more harm if fabric decay is advanced.

Stains are recorded on your dress and methods for further treating the locations with spots are outlined, as well as a stain grading score. After this initial evaluation, they'll begin the process of pre-treating your gown with our gentle, yet effective, solutions. However, if our experts believe that your gown is too damaged to continue, they will notify you at this time.

Pre-treatment of Spots and Stains

The next process is the pre-treatment of spots and stains which is designed to loosen the hold that they have on your fabric. This is a very important step in the overall cleaning of your garment as it allows our team to more easily remove problem areas without damaging the dress.

The method used for pre-treating spots and stains will vary depending on the severity of the problem, as well as the type of fabric being treated. In some cases, a simple soak in our special solution is all that's needed to loosen the grip of a stain. More difficult areas may require several different types of pre-treatment before they can be safely removed.

Products - Eco-Friendly and Plant-Based Methods

Bride N Queen uses environmentally friendly processes to clean and preserve wedding gowns. We use plant-based solutions in our cleaning process as well as during storage to ensure that your gown is not only beautiful but also safe for the environment.

We use biodegradable and environmentally friendly solvents and plant-based detergents, including organic coconut water in our cleaning products. Coconut water is used in our cleaning products because it contains high levels of potassium and chlorophyll. This combination is excellent for removing stains and brightening fabrics. The coconut oil in the water also helps to protect the fabric from future damage.

This technique was developed to create a sharp, vivid, and spotless result that protects each wedding gown in its pristine condition. Finally, Bride N Queen uses formulations that are fabric-safe and leave no residual odors, films, or contaminants on your wedding dress.

Save Your Yellowed Wedding Dress With Bride N Queen Wedding Gown Preservation Kit Now!

Sweetie Wedding Dress Cleaning & Preservation Package

Wedding gown preservation is a lengthy and complicated endeavor. Fortunately, the Wedding Gown Preservation Experts at Bridal N Queen have made it much easier for you to get started. We offer three Wedding Dress Cleaning & Preservation Packages, each of which focuses on a particular aspect of brides' wedding dress preservation and cleaning needs.

Your wedding gown is bathed in a 100% organic coconut water cleaning solution for each package, which will gently clean and preserves it for many years, if not forever! As a preventative measure against fabric yellowing in the future, we don't store them in normal cardboard boxes since they cause discoloration and textural deterioration. We offer acid-free preservation boxes that keep your clothing free of stains, fading, and other harm.

Do you have any questions regarding our wedding dress cleaning and preservation procedures before making a purchase? Call us at our service number (800) 519-7698! We'll be delighted to answer any questions you might have and address any concerns you may have.