Washing and drying
Spandex dies of three things: chlorine, heat and sunscreen. Here is how to keep a piece from going baggy at the seat before the season is out.
Most of what we cut runs high in spandex, which is what lets a high waist sit flat and a tankini top stay down. Spandex is also the part that gives up first, and it gives up faster than the printed shell around it. Everything below is aimed at that one fibre.
Within the hour
Rinse in cold fresh water as soon as you are out, before the chlorine or the salt dries in the knit. Thirty seconds under a tap does more for the life of a suit than any wash later on. Sunscreen and self tanner are worse than either: the oils sit in the fibre and the pigments stain white and pale prints permanently.
The wash
- Cold water, by hand, in the basin. Two minutes of gentle squeezing, no wringing.
- A drop of mild soap if it needs it. Skip anything with bleach, and skip fabric softener entirely, because it coats the elastic and stops it recovering.
- No machine. Even a delicate cycle beats the elastic against the drum for half an hour.
- Press the water out inside a towel. Do not twist.
The dry
Flat, in shade, with air moving. A dryer will kill the stretch in one cycle and a radiator will do it in two. Direct sun fades a print and hardens the knit at the same time, so a balcony rail in the afternoon is the worst place in the house for a wet suit.
Never leave a suit rolled up wet in a bag overnight. That is where the smell that never comes out begins, and it takes about six hours.
Between wears
Give a piece a day off if you can. Elastic recovers with rest, and a suit worn two days running goes slack at the seat before one worn every other day does. Store it flat and dry, not folded into a hard crease, and keep it away from anything with a rough hook and loop closure, which will pull the knit into snags.
What ordinary wear looks like
A little pilling under the seat after a season of pool tiles is normal and does not affect the fit. Slackness at the waistband is the elastic, and once it has gone it does not come back. If a piece arrives with either of those, that is a fault rather than wear, and the retail partner you ordered from handles it under their own policy.