How to wash puffer jackets at home without ruining them

We've all got one, but do you know how to wash puffer jackets without ruining them at home? They are investment that are worth looking after properly as they will serve you year after year if they are cleaned correctly. It's not enough to just use natural laundry liquid, they need to be handled carefully. The first time I washed one of mine it ended up lumpy and was unwearable. Learn below how puffer jackets are designed and how to wash your puffer jacket without it getting lumpy.

What is a puffer jacket?

One of my favourite pieces of clothing is my puffer jacket from Kathmandu. They are filled with feather and down and are really warm and super lightweight. In winter, I can rug up without feeling like I'm wearing something bulky or heavy. The only trouble is that they do need washing from time to time and they do come out of the machine rather lumpy and odd. I did put mine in the dryer and even once dry, I had to spend some 'quality time' with my coat getting it to 'de-lump' for me, but it never really felt right after that.

How to wash puffer jackets

The good news is, you can wash your puffer jacket at home in a washing machine. Put yourself in the mindset that you're washing wool when you wash your puffer jacket. Choose the gentlest cycle on your machine. Sometimes that is your wool wash, other times you'll have a delicates setting. Keep the temperature cold or no warmer than 30°C. If there's the choice of doing an extra rinse, either as a part of the program or doing a manual rinse only cycle at the end, choose that. If you can slow down the spin cycle or bypass it completely, that's even better too.

There are a very small handful of 'down specific' laundry products, but they're hard to find and we're certainly not aware of anyone who makes a natural one. Use a wool wash or something gentle as your detergent. We prefer liquid over powder in this instance, so either our liquid wool wash or a liquid baby wash will be just fine.

Run your puffer jacket through the gentle cycle and if you can skip the spin cycle and get in an extra rinse, great.

What should you avoid doing when you wash a puffer jacket

Above we've told you what you should do, but there's a couple of things that really should be avoided that you may accidentally do innocently, so they are worth a mention.

Don't use a top load machine. The agitator is likely to damage the jacket. They don't know how to do gentle, and you really do need a gentle wash here.

Don't squeeze or wring it dry, and getting it out of the spin cycle in the machine is helpful.

Don't sent it off the to the dry cleaner. The solvents used will damage the down and the feathers inside.

Don't use fabric softener, natural or otherwise. There's no way you're getting that down and feathers all fluffy and plump again with the weight of a fabric softener in them. It's just not necessary.

What's the best way to dry a puffer jacket

You can use a combination of drip drying flat and the clothes dryer. Once it comes out of the washing machine, particularly if you opted out of the spin cycle, the jacket will be very wet and heavy. Lay it flat on a clothes rack and give it 1 to 2 days to drip dry as much as you can. Give it a bit of a 'fluff up' periodically, especially if you can see any clumps forming as it dries.

When it's only very mildly damp, you can finish it off on the low heat setting of your clothes dryer. All the research we read tells you to put tennis balls in the dryer. The last thing I want is the smell of a new tennis ball, made even more intense by the heat of the dryer, going all through my jacket. We have the perfect product in store for this - wool dryer balls.

The idea is that the balls flop around your dryer and start belting out those little clumps of feathers while they're drying. I had to do it by hand after it came out. It took quite some time! Instead of having your jacket smell like rubber and a game of tennis, you can use our dryer balls and a few drops of essential oils and have it smell  like something beautiful instead.

Find everything you need in our natural cleaning products aisle.

One last tip (ok 2)

A couple of hot tips when washing your puffer jacket is to ensure it is 100% dry before you either wear it or put it away. When down and feathers are damp and not allowed to dry, they smell awful.

Zip up your jacket or vest before you wash it. Why? The fabric is delicate and the metal from the zip may catch on it somewhere and cause a tear.