D.W.R. maintenace costs

Nikwax maintains that the usual powdered laundry detergents are hard on the DWR coating. Of course, they like to sell detergent– I’d love ot hear the differences. Using a front loading machine is supposed to be easier on the fabrics too. I wonder if wet storage and wash and drying temperatures make a difference.

I had asked in another thread if anyone knew the chemical composition of the DWR treatments, but got no answers. Nikwax TX wash-in smells like PVA to me. I’ve never used ReviveX. See http://www.mcnett.com

ReviveX uses heat to set the DWR, but Nikwax doesn’t. I’ve seen a few garment laundering tags that recommended ironing to refresh the DWR– not all fabrics would take well to ironing, so there’s some caution in making that universal.

Dale says “Nikwax maintains …..detergents are hard on the DWR coating”. As I understand the problem, detergents are not just hard on DWR, they can destroy it. You don’t need much detergent to achieve this. The remains from the previous use of the washing machine is enough unless you carefully clean out the detergent dispenser tray in the machine plus all the little nooks and crannies around it then run a wash cycle with the machine empty. I can never be bothered with this, so I hand-wash my DWR gear.

If you neglect this and the detergent gets at your DWR coating, even applying a new dose of waterproofer won’t work.

Now for the good news. Instead of detergent you should use either Nikwax’s special cleaning product or old fashioned soap flakes, which are much cheaper if you can find them. If you avoid the detergent it is not necessary to reproof every time you wash the garment. Usually, after washing, rain will once more run off the garment in beads: only when this no longer happens do you need to re-proof.

If you have deterged (have I just invented this word?)a garment, wash it thoroughly as described above and then re-proof. This is worth trying on items whose DWR you thought was long dead.