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How to Protect Wool Clothing From Moth Damage - MothBalls - DryCleaning - Lavender - Cedar
Balls Hi. Iím Antonio Centeno, the founder of Real
Men Real Style. And today weíre going to be talking about how to protect your clothing
from moth damage.
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about in this video.
Okay. Protecting your clothing, particularly wool clothing from moth damage. And ñ so
itís getting cold here in Wisconsin and I started pulling out my sweaters. And I got
a really -- a good collection of wool sweaters and wool cashmere blends, just some really
nice sweaters. And ahh, one of my sweaters had moth damage.
And so thatís what prompted this video. And itís just ñ you know, itís like ñ it is
frustrating because I took a lot of steps but there were some that I look at where these
were stored and basically, this one was not sealed properly. And I donít think that I
had enough protectant in there. And where I was using a herb protectant, I probably
needed to use more of it.
But let me go ahead and talk these steps that you can take to prevent what happened to me
and Iíll also touch briefly in how Iím going to fix this small bit of damage. So I am lucky
this was just very small amount.
Okay. Before you put an item in the stores, and this usually happens in the spring time,
near at the end of winter, you need to make sure itís cleaned properly. And you can do
this yourself by using something like Woolite, although thatís not necessarily going to
kill any eggs but it will do a good job of removing a lot of debris and preventing other
bits of damage on there. But if youíd have problems in the past, you want to possible
take your clothing through a professional. And theyíll use a chemical treatment ñ let
them know that this is why you want to have it cleaned and theyíll run chemicals over
it which will kill and destroy a lot of the eggs and any ñ well, you would see if thereís
any larvae there, but basically, you want to kill any eggs that have been laid.
Because when it comes down, moths arenít the things destroyed. Itís the larvae which
hatch out of the eggs which are going to eat the hair, which is what wool, whether itís
from a goat, whether itís from a rabbit, whether itís from a sheep, they are going
to eat that hair. And thatís what you want to prevent. So if youíve had problems in
the past or if you live in the 110-year-old Victorian house like I do in an area which
I known for moths, you want to take your clothing to a professional and have it cleaned. I didnít
do it with this sweater, in particular. I know.
Okay. So once you have it cleaned, then you want to immediately store it. And you want
to store it in a container which is a sealed container. So that was my big mistake. Because
I put it in a ñ I left it in the top drawer, I didnít seal it up in a plastic container.
And I thought that, ìOkay Iím going to put these herbs around this thing, it will be
fine.î Well, herbs, mothballs, cedar, those things donít necessarily -- well, mothballs
perhaps, theyíve actually got some very strong chemicals in them. But most of the other ones
I mentioned there, they do not kill the eggs or the larvae. They kind of warded the way
especially the natural ones, itís not totally ñ but the way that the mothballs do actually
kill any larvae or any moths, is that you have to make sure the container is sealed.
And it basically forms within the air there it makes it -- so itís toxic and itís going
to kill anything that hatches out of those eggs or anything thatís alive and gets to
put in there.
So that big thing. You want to keep it sealed. Next, all these things Iím talking about,
there are three really big options out there. Number one, put a cedar. And if you have a
cedar closet, thatís great. Most people donít. So you can get cedar balls, you can get cedar
sticks. But the problem with that is you got to actually sand it and refresh it because
eventually youíll lose it -- the natural scent gives off.
Now there are herbs out there that you can ñ and people I hear making their own. Now
these are nice because moth balls are ñ well, they have cancer ñhave been shown some of
the things in there that cause cancer, so you donít necessarily want that. But the
problem with the herbs is theyíre not nearly a strong, of course, theyíre not going to
kill things as much, and you really need to make sure you have that good seal. I used
the herbs and I didnít have a good seal and I think thatís what did it for me.
Now, if youíre going to need these mothballs and you maybe got that problem, youíre going
to put these stuff away outside of, you know, not in your bag, weíre going to put this
on a storage unit, then perhaps mothballs, itís a good solution for you. And again,
make sure itís sealed, use the mothballs and those things are going to kill just about
anything.
Finally, if youíre going to be storing in a place where you can inspect occasionally
and you want to do this quickly but you want to be looking for any damage.
So lucky for me I was able to see that, ìOkay, itís a very small hole.î Because once the
hole ñ if itís bigger than half an inch or even ñ yeah, once it gets bigger than
half an inch in circumference, itís going to be very, very difficult to fix.
Now Iím going to be able to have mine rewoven because itís very small hole. Actually there
were few other holes and thatís how I knew it was moth damage. But you know ñ and if
you just see one hole it may actually be, you got it torn or snacked, look for that.
But if you see multiple holes, kind of all over the place, you can be rest assured that
yes, that was moth damage.
So hopefully you found this video useful, and if you did please like it. And if you
want to learn more about Men Style, make sure to visit us over at Real Men, Real Style.
Take care. Itís been Antonio Centeno. Bye-bye.