Pilling on clothes are a series of small ‘lumps’ or knots (for want of a better term) that form due to normal wear and tear, quite often on knitted rather than woven fabrics but cotton, synthetics and mixed fabrics can all pill at some stage. Pills generally occur where groups of short or broken fibres get together to form these lumps. While they can occur anywhere, they are most likely to be seen in areas of high wear such as on the rear of pants, under the arms and around shirt collars and cuffs.
Back in the day, I used to work for a company that made tanning auxiliaries and our operations manager was a font of wisdom about many related things. He told me that piling in woollen clothing was usually cause by ‘crutchings’ (short wool shorn from around the rear end of the sheep) being included in the yarn. Just sayin’!
While piling does not affect how well the clothing wears, it can look untidy and give the garment a tired, worn and dirty look, so removing them can freshen clothing in general, but also between washes. It is worth inspecting clothing for pilling on a regular basis.
Can Pilling be Prevented?
There are a number of things you can do to prevent pilling, mostly they are good ideas anyway, because they reduce wear and tear on your clothes thus extending their life –
- Use the gentle cycle on your washing machine if you think the garment may be subject to pilling or if it has suffered from pilling in the past which you have dealt with.
- Sort clothing before washing so delicates can be washed together and not with more abrasive fabrics like denim.
- Avoid using a tumble drier – There are a whole stack of reasons why this is a good idea including reducing energy use, reducing wear and tear on your clothing and reducing the likelihood/incidence of pilling in your garments.
- Don’t overload your washing machine – overloading your washing machine (cramming in too many clothes to try and get them all through in a hurry) not only reduces the efficiency of cleaning your clothes, it also increases wear and tear and the likelihood of pills forming in susceptible garments.
- Avoid bleaches and other harsh chemicals that take a toll on your clothes and may result in pilling, and they also increase water pollution.
How do you deal with pilling once it has occurred?
I found four methods of removing pilling and I thought I would check them out to see if any of them worked. The good news is that all of them do, but with variable efficiency. To test the techniques I grabbed hold of one of our microfibre sheets that has developed extensive pilling, and believe me badly pilled sheets like this one are very uncomfortable to sleep on!
I borrowed one of Linda’s embroidery hoops and then used if to stretch out a part of the pilled sheet, so that I could easily try out the pill removers without having to hassle with the whole sheet, obviously this would not be required for a piece of clothing.
1. Lint shaver - I have been aware of the existence of lint shavers for a very long time, but never used one – they seemed to me to somewhat gimmicky and unlikely to get the job done. Well, wasn’t I surprised! In terms of area covered versus time it was certainly the most efficient! It also captured the cut off pills in the shaver itself so there was no need to go back and clean them off the fabric as a separate operation. The lint shaver I got was NOT expensive, it was a cheapie from an el cheapo shop, but it worked very well. The main disadvantage was that it was battery powered, probably not a big issue if used once in a while on a small patch of fabric, but I will see how long it lasts when I attack our badly pilled sheet.
2. Eezy Fabric Comb – This is another one that I had seen around but never owned, much less used. It turned out to be almost as efficient as the lint shaver, but requiring a second pass to remove the pills every so often, and it did not require batteries!
3. Disposable Razor – The razor I experimented with was no spring chicken but I suspect that once it was no longer suitable for skin, it would still work well on fabric. It was a bit less efficient than the Eezy comb, requiring a second or third pass more often to get all the pills but on a small area that is unlikely to matter much. It is also something that you are more likely to have just hanging around the house than the first two.
4. Straight Razor – On those (rare) days I don’t want to look totally like a homeless person, I use my straight razor to shave my neck and trim the edges of my beard up. So having it already, I had to try and see how it went on pill removal. It worked fine but I had to concentrate to keep the angle right, and I was a bit concerned that I would end up cutting a hole in the fabric, or worse, me! It did do the job, although perhaps not as manoeuvrable as the previous offerings if operating in restricted space.
While pilling is not a garment killer, it can be annoying on your favourite shirt, blouse or jumper so it can be worth spending a bit of time to prevent, and to have the gear and knowledge to be able to remove them should they occur.
