Everyone has that one sweater in their closet they can’t bear to part with. It’s cute and stylish but you just never wear it.
Why? Because spending five minutes in it is like covering yourself with itching powder. You contemplate it, put it on, and almost immediately take it off in yet another failed attempt to work it into your wardrobe.
You are not alone in your strife. I bought the most adorable pink fuzzy pullover sweater this year. It’s 100% kid mohair, which is a soft, fine fiber that comes from the belly of baby Angora goats that are less than two years old.
So I guess that’s long form for “softest sweater ever.” However, it’s like wearing a cactus. I know these kids are soft, so what’s the deal?
Slightly heartbroken, I considered the possibility of donating my sweater. I wouldn’t even feel good about it because I’d just be passing The Itch down to someone else. It just didn’t sit right with me. I needed to find an alternative.
Thus, my sweater-softening research began. And the ultimate solution isn’t at all what I expected. In fact, it gets progressively weirder.
The Trick to Soften an Itchy Sweater
The first step to ditching The Itch was turning the sweater inside out to keep from damaging the outer fibers. I filled a small tub with cold water and added a few tablespoons of distilled white vinegar.
I fully submerged the sweater and let it soak for 15 minutes. Sounds easy enough, right? After removing it from the vinegar bath, I very gently squeezed out some of the water, laid a towel down on my kitchen table, and placed the damp sweater on top.
Here’s where it starts to get interesting. I took a dollop of hair conditioner and massaged it into the sweater, which I found strangely relaxing. The thought process here is that the conditioner should soften up the fibers the same way it does for our hair.
I let the conditioner sit for about 30 minutes before rinsing the sweater in cold water. I laid it flat on a new towel to dry fully.
If you’re still here, this last and final step is truly bizarre. Once the sweater was totally dry, I placed it into the refrigerator overnight.
Yes, the refrigerator.
My research told me that you can also put it into the freezer, but somehow the refrigerator seemed like the less odd of the two options. If future you plans to try this, I would recommend folding and placing the sweater into a large ziplock bag first.
The science behind the overnight freeze is that the cold locks the fibers in place so they aren’t sticking out everywhere, contributing to The Itch.
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Did It Work?
I can say with confidence that putting my sweater through a literal spa day did in fact make it a bit softer. I succeeded in saving my sweater from the donation bin or worse—from someone else inheriting The Itch.
Now that I’ve tried this method, I’m looking forward to trying it out on different fibers. Would this work on synthetic fibers? Is it safe for other natural fibers? I hope to find out.
