Sweaters! We love them so much we even get all misty-eyed over the coming of fall, because it means that Sweater Weather is upon us. And, indeed, Sweater Weather is upon us. In its honor, here are a bunch of products to help keep your beloved woolens in tip-top shape.
A Great De-Piller
During the course of regular use, pills — which happen when friction causes fibers get frayed or broken and tangle — which will make your sweaters look old and worn out. A good de-pilling tool, however, will fix things up right quick. There are lots and lots of these tools available, and I’ve tried pretty much all of them? The one I like best of them all is the Gleener. It comes with three edges of varying weights, so you can swap them out depending on the weight of the sweater in need of de-pilling.
A Cool Lint Roller
Of course, pills aren’t the only thing that can befoul a sweater and make it look old or ratty or dirty. Run-of-the-mill lint, or stray hairs — whether pet or human — or dandruff will totally ruin the appearance of your sweater. Which is bad news!
Luckily, a lint roller is really all you need to relieve sweaters of detritus, and this Flint number is so so so great because it’s retractable, which means you can stash it in a tote or laptop bag. It comes in 18 different color and pattern options too (Rose gold! Metallic slate gray! Classic navy!) so you can match your lint roller to your signature color, should you have such a thing.
A Drying Rack for Sweaters
Fun fact about your sweaters: They prefer NOT to be dry cleaned. Most sweaters should actually be machine- or hand-washed, but they should definitely not be machine dried—that’s how you end up with tiny baby sweaters where a full-sized adult sweater used to exist!
Sweaters are best air dried, and then on top of that there’s one more preference they have (who knew your sweaters had such specific desires in life?!?) They shouldn’t be hang-dried; they should be dried flat to prevent the weight of the wet fibers from stretching and becoming misshapen. While you can for sure lay a sweater down on a towel to air dry, a flat sweater dryer is better because the mesh design promotes even, and faster, drying. I like this OXO sweater dryer because it’s stackable, so you can dry multiple sweaters at a time, and it’s foldable, so it stores easily when not in use.
Unshrinkit
But let’s say that somehow your favorite sweater makes its way into the dryer and comes out teeny tiny. It happens. But more good news: there’s a product called Unshrinkit that does exactly what the name implies: It unshrinks clothes. An entire bottle, which costs about $12, is required to unshrink a sweater, but if it’s an item you spent a lot of money on (pricey cashmere!) or that’s especially beloved, the cost-benefit is probably well worth it.
A Shelf Divider/Organizer
It’s better to fold, rather than hang, sweaters when in storage, to avoid some of the damage that hanging can cause. A little later in sweater season, I’ll do a roundup of alllllll kinds of sweater organizing options (got favorites? Tell us in the comments!) but right quick: These shelf dividers are great, especially for people who rent and can’t make permanent changes to their closet. They slide over an existing shelf to create, essentially, cubby holes in which to store stacks of sweaters without them toppling over.