keikogi in washer?

[onitsuka]

Hi, I am a newbie, and I have a question about washing the keikogi. People telling me now to stuff the hakama into washer, but how about keikogi. I used vingear to fix the dye, but the vingear is leaving acidic smell on it. So can I use detergent and stuff the keikogi into the washer? thanks

[Hongsermeier]

Washer yes, detergent no. A simple rinse cycle should help. Mine goes in the washer 2 times a week or more. :cross_eye

[slidercrank]

I do use detergent, but in a very minute amount. Make sure the detergent has no bleach in it. Don't put any other clothes in the washer together with the gi. I know some other people use Woolite.

[Kiki]

Woolite Dark Laundry Fabric Wash and a dash of borax, cold water, hang dry.

Hakama - dry clean and pressed

[Shelgeyr]

Use a mild cloth detergent such as woolite or ivory snow, use a gentle cycle and cold water, DO NOT use hot water as this could cause shrinkage. I use a hanger to dry mine inside, be careful if you hang it outside as UV light can cause indigo dyes to fade.

[kendomushi]

I wash mine with my old jeans, helps make the jeans blue again. lol.
I use a normal detergent in a normal amount. I wash every other time I wear it and only use cold water. Then I dry it on a large hanger actually meant for a kimono so the sleeves are laid out straight. I keep it inside.
I wouldn't machine wash low quality ones though.

[aru-ma]

My gi is white so I use a moderate bleach and a small amount of detergent, I need to get that blue cross on the back of my gi:D

hakama? I use washing machine, surprisingly after 3 years the pleats are still there.

[Koori]

Hi also a newbie...

Does washing both gi and hakama in washingmachine help with the fading of the dye when wearing them? I am frequently coming away from practice looking like a smurf and it takes a good scrubbing to get the dye off. I have already set the dye with vinegar when I first got them. Do I need to re-set the dye?

Thanks for your help

-Koori

[Yellow Savage]

Can someone please answer Koorie's query as I'd like to know myself...wearing an acidic smelling Gi does not attract the ladies :cheeky:

[kendomushi]

Washing them in a washing machine, only after first setting the dye, is fine. However, be aware that even after setting, there will be some bleed. My good, order made keikogi will still turn white socks blue if I accidentally leave one in the washer. So wash alone or only with things you don't mind having a blue tint.

[Koori]

Thanks Kendomushi,
I was hoping that would work. I am ok with some bleeding but not as dark as I am having now.

Thanks for your help.

-Koori

______________
...Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-Robert Frost

[kendomushi]

Most welcome :)

[13th warrior]

Wash it and don't worry... I have a thick top-quality keikogi and an indigo-dyed hakama, and no problems with washing them. During the first 3-4 month I was blue all over after the training but now (after 8 months) there's no more bleeding. The more often you wash the gear, the sooner the bleeding will end. Tumble-drying is not very good for the gi, though...

[PhilMcLaughlin]

Try a COLD wash with a couple of handfuls of dishwasher salt (simulates a lot of sweating ;-)

hakama are best done in a bath - i tack stich the crease points before washing, hang it to drain and dry & you can hand smooth the creases back in - looks like new

I found this works well & reduces smurfism :-) (sadly i now have the smurf song running around in my head)

phil..

[Alicia]

i have been told that it is a serious crime to wash hakamas in a washing machine! it appears no-one else takes this attitude- good oh, that will save the huge mount of time it takes me to hand wash mine, and i will refer anyone else that tells me it is bad to one of you guys. But before i was made to see the wickedness of my ways, i did put my hakama in the washing machine once and found that the hardish flat bit(sorry, i dont know the name) when kind of soft and soggy. it is probably because it is a cheaphakama and i have a sneaking suspicion that inside the material it is made of cardboard. i may be wrong, but i dont think that it does it much good wetting it then drying it again in a washing machine. when i hand wash it, i try to keep it dry
anyway, if anyone else has this prob, how do they fix it? let it rot or what? imay of course be on the complete wrong track and it was soft for some other reason, not becaus i washed it.
please help
:cool2: alicia
ps what is the smurf song?
pps what looks like blue tak, smells like blue tak, feels like blue tak and tastes like blue tak?
smurf poo

[xvikingx]

i did put my hakama in the washing machine once and found that the hardish flat bit(sorry, i dont know the name) when kind of soft and soggy. it is probably because it is a cheaphakama and i have a sneaking suspicion that inside the material it is made of cardboard.

I am embarrassed to say I forgot what it is called too. I think its the koshi shita... Anyways some hakamas do have cardboard in there. Mostly older ones that is. Also I am not sure, but I believe other than kendo & naginata that back part of other hakamas are either soft or made of card board. I dont know of any way of repairing it, I only know that hand washing it will prolong the life of your hakama. :ermm: Little late for that I guess.

Me, I paid alot of money for my hakama... Ill be damned if I am going to stick it in a machine.

[Revenir]

Hmm, something strange has happened... I decided to soak my keikogi and hakama in vinegar last night since everyone kept saying the dye must be set! And when i rubbed my hands over it, they also turned blue slightly. Thing is, when I woke this morning, the water hadn't changed colour at all...

I checked last night, it's an indigo dyed keikogi from e-bogu - http://www.e-bogu.com/ketaunkkdbln03.html
The hakama was seikon dye, but I wasn't sure what that was and chucked it in the bucket anyways...

Why didn't it bleed? Is it now nice and acidic for nought?

[slidercrank]

Why didn't it bleed? Is it now nice and acidic for nought?

I'm afraid so. As I have stated here (http://www.kendo-world.com/forum/showthread.php?p=22495#post22495) All this "setting the dye" is hogwash, in my humble opinion.

Unless someone has bought 3 identical indigo-dyed gi's, and soaked one each in salt, vinegar and plain water, and compared the resultant "dye-setting," I'm not gonna waste my time and energy soaking my gi in anything. Salt water at least doesn't stink. Vinegar, on the other hand... well, you've found it out for yourself.

Some say that salt water mimcks the sweat, which again allegedly sets the dye. Well, in that case, I say just practice more and sweat harder! What's wrong with being blue all over at the end of the practice? Just be girl and buy a shower puff. It takes the dye right off your skin:)

[tanueirin]

Hi everyone,

I got my new keikogi and hakama last week <big grin>. The guy who owns the store gave very explicit wash and care instructions that seem to be working so far:
For the keikogi: 1) Dissolve a handful of salt in cold water. Leave keikogi in the salt water for several hours (this will fix the dye). 2) Rinse the keikogi in several changes of cold water to remove the salt, and in you can leave the keikogi in the final change of water for several hours to make sure all the salt is gone. 3) Wash in gentle cold cycle on the machine. 4) Dry in the shade.
For the hakama: Dry-clean only. (Yeah, I know.)
No smell, no dye running and very little shrinkage. We measured the seams before and after washing and overall the keikogi shrank by 0.5cm all over.

Hope this helps,
Angie

[Neil Gendzwill]

For the hakama: Dry-clean only. (Yeah, I know.)

Do yourself a favour and ignore this advice. The one time I had my hakama dry-cleaned, the idiots pressed the pleats in the wrong places. If you have a tetron hakama, wash it gentle cycle cold and hang to dry with a pants press, arranging and smoothing the pleats. Good to go, no ironing required. If you have cotton, wash in the tub if you're extra-cautious, then arrange carefully in the dryer and spin the excess water out. Hang again, arranging the pleats, then iron while still slightly damp. You can also wash cotton in the machine, but you should add a stitch or two to each pleat to make sure you can find them again to iron them in.

[Koori]

I have heavy cotton hakama and I contacted the place I bought them from and he told me that it was ok to put in the washer, just make sure it is on cold, set the dye first and not with anyting else.
I went to a laundramat and put the hakama in one of those front loading washers without the adjitators.
I just put it in folded with my gi. It worked great. When it came out I hung them up while we were finishing the rest of the laundry and when we were ready to go I folded the hakama up following the pleats.
Amazingly enough, the washer didn't destroy or take out the pleats. I folded them up in a lg black beach towel and brought them home.
After getting home, I opened them up but made sure that I pinched the pleats and kept them laying flat.
I just made sure that I flipped them over several times while they were drying to make sure that both sides were dry.

So far so good.

-Koori

[tanueirin]

The one time I had my hakama dry-cleaned, the idiots pressed the pleats in the wrong places.

Thanks for the heads-up, Neil! I did raise an eyebrow when the seller said I should dry-clean my hakama but he assured me that they were used to pleats from doing netball skirts. Hmmmm ....

Anyway, it looks like you've managed to avert some unpleasant scenes at the dry-cleaner's. :happy:

[tanizaki]

In Aikido, hakama are typically not worn until the student has reached Dan-rank (although, some schools and federations allow students to wear them at ikkyu or sooner). Our Sensei would order blue-indigo dyed hakama from the Iwata Company. New yudansha would immediately be recognizable by their blue hands, feet, and keikogi. Years ago our mat was canvas covered, so we could also tell where the new yudansha had just practiced.

I copied a Q&A article from the Aikiweb internet site. I gives some historical information as well as "setting" information. Hope it is useful... :happy:


"Question: So I went and bought myself a brand-new indigo hakama from a friend. So far, I've soaked it in salt water for about four nights running to try to set the dye. I wore the thing for the first time tonight and, boy, are my dogi pants blue! Unfortunately, so are sections of our mat. I went and tried getting the stuff our using peroxide and a sponge but it's tough. Luckily, our mats aren't canvas -- they're those vinyl faux tatami things. Anyone have any tips on getting this stuff off the mats? I was at the dojo for about thirty minutes after class scrubbing away -- after mopping the place, too. Any tips on cleaning those blue streaks would be greatly appreciated.

Quick Answer: If it's bleeding, wash it! 2 or 3 or 4 times, repeatedly, with soap such as Ivory Soap or Woolite. Using a detergent like Tide may dissolve the indigo somewhat due to its alkalinity.

The longer answer involves chemistry and history.

The advice to set the dye with vinegar or salt is commonly heard and seems to make sense from the standpoint that indigo is mildly soluble in a reducing solution, insoluble in an oxidized state. But these approaches cannot be an issue at the point that you have an actual bleeding hakama -- the acid of the vinegar does not glue the indigo to the fabric by making it less soluble. Possibly the tradition of "vinegar to set the dye" is a holdover from dying wool, a final rinse that would be better for the wool than leaving it with any amount of alkaline soap residue.

Saltwater also has nothing to do with the chemistry of indigo dye.

Peroxide is essentially super-oxygenated water. It will certainly not dissolve the indigo (but you might keep it insoluble and all in one place so you can rip it off with sheer determination and muscle power). Will soaking the hakama in a diluted peroxide solution help "set" the dye? You might get more thoroughly oxidized indigo chunks but that will not help the problem as the dye that is coming off of your hakama is not in the hakama -- it is ON it. Think of the excess indigo as blue fuzzballs or chalk dust. Something that does not blend with the fiber itself.

I suspect that many purveyors of "genuine, natural indigo-dyed" material heap undissolved indigo onto the cloth just to give it a darker, richer color much of which is illusion and falls off later. In real life, and with a cotton hakama, it is far better to just wash the excess out before it falls out in chunks all over your mat and furniture. But why is there excess dye in the first place?

Modern methods of indigo dyeing involve a chemical reducing solution which simply cannot get the dark dark blues that the older methods did. (The thiourea dioxide chemical commonly used for reducing the indigo to make it soluble in dyeing is commonly available as "Spectralite" usually found next to the shoe polish and such in many grocery or drugstores, in fabric or craft stores. Sodium hydrosulfite may also be used and can be found commonly as "RIT Color Remover." If youre trying to clean a mat be sure to test it on a small, inconspicuous and low-stress side spot of the mat first to make sure it doesn't take everything else off too. It will certainly be safe for restoring your white cotton dogi pants.)

To dye with indigo in these modern times, you mix up a potfull of thiourea dioxide or sodium hydrosulfite and water and add indigo (natural or synthetic -- they both have the same chemical formula). The result is a pale YELLOW GREEN solution known as WHITE indigo.

You dip the cloth in the dye, pull it out, and before your very eyes it starts to change from green to blue. Why? Because the indigo is oxidizing -- reacting with the oxygen in the air -- becoming insoluble. It's delightful and magical to see.

In theory, you can dip it back in again for another coating of indigo to make the color a little darker. This is fine a few times, but very soon you have a problem. Enough thiourea dioxide or sodium hydrosulfite in the solution to reduce the indigo not only keeps the indigo in the dye-pot in solution, it also dissolves the indigo already deposited on your cloth right back out again. Consequently, you can never get the deep dark blues obtained through traditional methods.

What were the traditional methods?

A reducing environment via bacteria in a pit of aged urine and its highly fragrant biological byproducts. Very effective, but much slower -- and extremely smelly.

An old dye book mentions a dyer who had switched to the new-fangled synthetic indigo. Apparently customers would check for the authentic urine aroma to be sure they were getting the real goods, so he included a recipe using urea to provide the "authentic" smell.

However. . . at best, indigo is not very soluble. It tends to deposit on the surface of the fiber which is why blue jeans (traditionally dyed with indigo) weather and fade the way they do; the blue eventually wears away leaving the white cotton thread showing through. If you've ever read the epic "Musashi Miyamoto" you will remember that one of Otsu's odd jobs as she follows Musashi about the countryside is pounding cloth with a mallet to squoosh the indigo into the fiber.

The old method required weeks or months. Thiourea dioxide or sodium hydrosulfite dye solutions take mere minutes but because of the impossibility of obtaining dark blues with "Authentic Indigo" by modern methods, there seems to be a temptation to make the cloth look bluer than the chemistry actually allows. What to do? Simple!

Oxidize the solution in the dye-pot so it turns blue (i.e., creates blue chalk dust) and pile these onto the cloth.

This is counterproductive per effective dyeing, but useful per economics if you want a deeper blue but don't want to waste time and money doing it right. The cloth APPEARS to be bluer thanks to a powdery coating of tiny grains of oxidized indigo deposited ON the cloth. They will fall off with wear, smurfing anything they touch.

Once again, the only cure is simply to wash the garment until the excess dye is gone. If the resulting color is too pale blue for your taste, consider machine dyeing with a RIT Indigo Blue. In either case, if you end up with a blue washer, throw in a packet of RIT color remover and all will be well."

[HennaSaru]

thank you for this post. it was very informative. i am new to kendo and have recently purchased my hakama and keiko gi. i knew beforehand that the dye would come off onto my skin but had no idea to what extreme. i have worn formal kimono and hakama many times and know how to wear it so i couldn't resist putting to on at home. now i'm blue, my bed where i fold my gear is blue, my sink is blue. it's not easy being blue. i don't mind but the wife isn't in to it. thanks again

[Alicia]

interesting fact: the blue seems to come off your skin onto clothes, telephones, walls(there are handprints everywhere at my place) but when you actually try to de-blue yourself, it takes half an hour of contortionist acts in the shower and a lot of scrubbing.
i have nothing against being blue, i just think of it as advertisement for kendo, or a novel tan, but i dont enjoy everything else i own turning blue. has anyone got any experience as to what washes off the dye from other things? just soap and water doesnt seem to work.

[Brian C.]

So is it a good idea then to set the dye in both the keikogi and the hakama?? I have worked with dyed items before and I feel that the salt idea works pretty well. I just got a brand new set yesterday and they look great, now I just have to set the dye.


Brian C.

[Neil Gendzwill]

So is it a good idea then to set the dye in both the keikogi and the hakama?? I have worked with dyed items before and I feel that the salt idea works pretty well. I just got a brand new set yesterday and they look great, now I just have to set the dye.

Most people buy tetron hakama so the dye is colourfast. You only need worry with cotton hakama, and then most people don't bother because they're such a pain in the butt to wash and never look quite as perfect after they've been washed. You don't sweat into hakama as much and your hips are covered by the kendogi. Usually with a new cotton hakama, only your ankles and calves get blue - easy to wash!

[Gohanssj]

Geez am I glad one of our instructors wifes make traditional japanese clothing and tells us exactly how to wash them and take care of them, and their all custom made too.

[slidercrank]

Geez am I glad one of our instructors wifes make traditional japanese clothing and tells us exactly how to wash them and take care of them, and their all custom made too.
So what did she say??

[Chopstix]

lol indeed! Answer the question please kind sir :)

[Okori]

Dam these pleats...

[ShinKenshi]

Hmm. I was actually a little surprised to hear that people have a hard time getting the dye off of themselves after practice. I just take a bar of soap and it comes right off my skin. Can't say the same for when the dye gets on other things though. I tried ironing my hakama at home once and my mom started yelling at me and when I looked at the iron, the white plastic had blue marks all over it. With some hot water I was able to get most of it off but you can still see some of it there (most likely because of the poreous properties of plastic). For those of you who wash your keikogi and hakama by hand, do you just fill a tub with cold water, add some mild detergent (if any), scrub it, rinse it, and hang dry it?

[Tiki-kun]

I know some people aren't gonna like this - but I am one of those folks who uses a white gi because I find the thick smell of indigo a tad.... icky. I also like to be able to wash with detergent and bleach (once in a while) in hot water after practice. I buy my gi one size too big to compensate for shrinking.
My Hakama is tetron, and I wash it in a machine with no problems once or twice a month. It is getting a bit of wear - but I expect that after 3 years. I loved Neil's comments about dry cleaning! When living in Japan, I regularly had my hakama dry cleaned. It was only 200 yen, and it came back all pressed and folded PERFECTLY - it was like getting a new hakama every 2 weeks for $1.50! When I moved back to Hawaii, I took the hakama to the local dry cleaner (who assured me they knew what to do with it) and the pleats were DESTROYED. Live and learn!
I am looking into new hakama, and that tetron pair with stitched pleats is looking real good on e-bogu. Anyone out there own a pair?

[Galo]

My Hakama is tetron, and I wash it in a machine with no problems once or twice a month. It is getting a bit of wear - but I expect that after 3 years. I loved Neil's comments about dry cleaning! When living in Japan, I regularly had my hakama dry cleaned. It was only 200 yen, and it came back all pressed and folded PERFECTLY - it was like getting a new hakama every 2 weeks for $1.50! When I moved back to Hawaii, I took the hakama to the local dry cleaner (who assured me they knew what to do with it) and the pleats were DESTROYED. Live and learn!

Guess that clearly shows that's hakama-wearing MA's are far more common in Japan and thus the dry cleaning places have a lot more customers taking them there than any other place? XD

I've taken 2 different hakamas to dry-cleaning once each.
The first time, it was an indigo tetron hakama. As Tiki said.. the pleats were gone!!!!... they just ironed them out of there!!!! :angry: They did exactly the opposite I told them..

Second time, it was my newest black hakama. Oddly enough, I took it to the same dry-cleaning place. Guess I was willing to give them a second chance. And it wasn't that bad, considering I told the attending gal that if they screwed up, they'd do it again =P And this time they did right!, very good I must admit. It looked as if the hakama was new. I was happy and it looked really neat. :happy:

[Mugu]

Just a thought, why not just wear white keikogi? One, you can avoid being blue. Two, you can avoid the dye to come off when you wash it. I'm just talking about the keikogi here since I hardly ever get dyed by my Hakama. I also found the Bu Jin actually offers a replacement kit for Koshiita (the cardboard part) just in case the dry cleaner screws up your koshiita again, $15 per pop...

http://www.bujindesign.com/hakama.html#k