How To Care For A Football Uniform: Tips For Looking After The Girdle, Jersey & More

Can You Put a Gir­dle In The Dryer? Foot­ball is a North Amer­i­can obses­sion. Whether it’s being a super fan cheer­ing on your favourite team dur­ing the Super Bowl on Amer­i­can Thanks­giv­ing week­end or attend­ing your son’s high school games and yelling out sup­port from the side­lines, there’s no doubt that most sports-mind­ed fam­i­lies love football. Books are writ­ten about it; movies are made cel­e­brat­ing it, and those who play foot­ball at the col­lege or pro­fes­sion­al lev­el become as rich and famous as Hol­ly­wood stars. Scores of col­umn inch­es are ded­i­cat­ed to this game, and web­sites galore track the suc­cess and fail­ure of each team in Cana­da and the U.S. as they progress through the season. Whether you’re play­ing the game your­self or look­ing after the gear of some­one who is, clean­ing the uni­form is no doubt a week­ly or even dai­ly neces­si­ty. After all, few sports involve as much direct con­tact as foot­ball. No play­er gets through a game with­out div­ing into the dirt, sail­ing through the air, and land­ing on the ground on the field. Stains are ground in dur­ing the few hours it takes to play one game of foot­ball, and get­ting the uni­form clean for the next time on the field can be down­right challenging. Each piece of a foot­ball uni­form requires spe­cif­ic care to keep look­ing its best and extend its lifes­pan in order to avoid hav­ing to replace some­thing halfway through the sea­son. Foot­ball jer­seys and gir­dles aren’t cheap! Even if your child’s school or col­lege sup­plies their uni­form, it is up to them (or their par­ents) to ensure it stays in good shape. More impor­tant than the eco­nom­ics of it, how­ev­er, is the pro­tec­tion role a gir­dle plays dur­ing a game. If a foot­ball gir­dle isn’t cared for prop­er­ly, the waist­band may stretch out, and the padding over the thighs and hips may shift. No one wants that. When a play­er is tack­led on the field and falls hard on the ground, they want to be con­fi­dent that their gir­dle will do what it was designed to do and help pro­tect them. For a foot­ball gir­dle to do its best to keep a play­er safe and “insu­late” them from bruis­ing and scrapes, their gir­dle has to be cared for in a very par­tic­u­lar way. We know that plen­ty of our read­ers are the ones clean­ing foot­ball uni­forms for the kids in their hous­es, and we want to help. We did some research into how you can not only wash the jer­sey and gir­dle, but oth­er issues, too – for exam­ple, can you put a foot­ball gir­dle in the dry­er? What’s the best way to take good care of each piece of your child’s uni­form? How do you get out those nasty dirt and grass stains? For tips on how to get the clean­est foot­ball uni­form pos­si­ble, con­tin­ue read­ing! (If your child is head­ing off to col­lege next year and will have to care for their uni­form them­selves, pass along this arti­cle to them by book­mark­ing it on their phone!)

- First Things First: Bang Out All The Loose Dirt

Foot­ball jer­seys, gir­dles and pads can indeed get filthy dur­ing a game but don’t just plunge every­thing into the wash the minute you get home. When you’re ready to clean it, first sep­a­rate the pieces and take them out­side or down to the base­ment to get rid of loose dirt. You might be sur­prised by how much soil and grass clings to a uni­form, but it comes off quite eas­i­ly when you take this step first. Then, take a brush with soft bris­tles and go at the gir­dle and jer­sey again. Even more dirt will fall off. Once you’ve done this, the var­i­ous uni­form pieces are almost ready for wash­ing. Almost!

- Have a Detergent On Hand That’s Designed For Pre-soaking

Because grass stains, in par­tic­u­lar, can be tough to get out even if they’ve only been on the gir­dle and jer­sey for a few hours, pre-soak­ing these pieces is very help­ful. Mix a laun­dry deter­gent for del­i­cate fab­rics with a prod­uct designed to tack­le stains, like Oxy Clean, for example. Let the gir­dle sit in luke­warm or even cold water, mixed with the stain-fight­ing soap, until all the marks appear to be fad­ing. If they haven’t been on the jer­sey or gir­dle for very long, the stains will begin break­ing down quite quickly.

- Should You Wash a Football Girdle – By Machine Or By Hand?

It’s up to you, real­ly. Just remem­ber that if you decide to put it into your wash­ing machine, you should first put it into a mesh laun­dry bag, as doing so will help pro­tect the gir­dle dur­ing the wash cycle. A mesh bag stops the gir­dle from becom­ing caught in oth­er items. Put the wash on the gen­tle cycle, so the fab­ric isn’t torn or tan­gled, which a reg­u­lar cycle might cause. And our research revealed that you should nev­er wash a foot­ball gir­dle with cloth­ing that has a zip­per – a pair of jeans, for exam­ple, or a jack­et. Should the teeth of a zip­per get caught in a foot­ball gir­dle, they could eas­i­ly tear the fab­ric. Although you may have done the pre-soak in luke­warm water, when it comes time to put the gir­dle in the wash­ing machine it’s best to use cold. And use a soap that’s made for gen­tle cloth­ing – the same soap you use to hand wash your good, wool sweaters is like­ly the same one you’ll use for your child’s foot­ball gear. Although most foot­ball gir­dles are made of a blend of nylon, span­dex, sil­i­con and poly­ester – all very durable mate­ri­als – it’s the shape that can be neg­a­tive­ly affect­ed by wash­ing them incorrectly. Wash the gir­dle like it’s your mom’s best linen – very care­ful­ly! If you decide to hand wash the uni­form pieces instead, sim­ply fill a sink or tub with cold water add a lit­tle soap, swish them around a few times, and pro­ceed to the next step.

- Should You Put a Football Girdle In The Dryer?

No, you should­n’t, not even on a tum­ble cycle with almost no heat. Because you want to clean it but also pre­serve a girdle’s shape, it’s best if you hang it on a clothes line to dry nat­u­ral­ly, or lay it flat on a stur­dy towel. Foot­ball gir­dles (and oth­er pieces of gear) need to be treat­ed del­i­cate­ly, and that means no machine dry­ing, and def­i­nite­ly no dry clean­ing! We know it may seem curi­ous that an item that’s designed to take a lot of abuse on the field can be quite finicky to care for, but wash­ing and dry­ing a foot­ball gir­dle prop­er­ly means you won’t have to replace it for quite a while. And because foot­ball gear can run into hun­dreds of dol­lars, it’s wise to make each piece last as long as possible.

- Before You Store a Girdle, Disinfect It

Our research showed that using a mild dis­in­fec­tant, like a solu­tion of water and vine­gar, helps stop mould and bac­te­ria in their tracks, and keeps the gir­dle san­i­tized until you need it again the fol­low­ing sea­son. Pour a lit­tle white vine­gar into a tub of cold water and let the gir­dle sit for a few min­utes. Once it has thor­ough­ly dried, you can put it away know­ing the gir­dle is ful­ly san­i­tized and hygienic.

- Why Does Taking Care Of a Football Girdle Matter So Much?

If you have a foot­ball play­er in the house, you know that the gir­dle is one of the most impor­tant pieces of gear a team mem­ber wears. A gir­dle is rather like a pair of long, fit­ted under­wear, with padding stitched into the sides and hips. The padding helps pro­tect a play­er from the dam­age a bad hit from anoth­er play­er can poten­tial­ly inflict. When a play­er is tak­en down or sent fly­ing sev­er­al feet — and let’s be hon­est it hap­pens a lot in foot­ball — a gir­dle helps ensure the effects aren’t too seri­ous when they are knocked off their feet. That’s why it’s so vital that a foot­ball gir­dle is well cared for. It has to retain its shape and padding all sea­son long. That goes for all the sep­a­rate pieces of their uni­form, not only the gir­dle. All the dif­fer­ent parts of a foot­ball uni­form can last well as long as they are all prop­er­ly cleaned and stored.

In Summary

Foot­ball is a con­tact sport, and play­ers get hit and tack­led all the time. It’s the nature of the game! There’s noth­ing you can do about that – it’s vir­tu­al­ly impos­si­ble for a play­er to fin­ish a game with­out all kinds of dirt, grass and debris cling­ing to their uniform.  How­ev­er, if you’re in charge of keep­ing their gear fresh and clean, fol­low­ing the guide­lines we’ve report­ed here will make your job eas­i­er. After all, a play­er does­n’t mind end­ing a game look­ing filthy, but they pre­fer start­ing one look­ing their best!

How Do I Wash a Football Uniform? — eHowSports