The wife's washing machine and my oilskin coat.

Because of the dangers involved, few people know that you can actually wash an oilskin coat!

You will see on our care instructions that we clearly state that to clean your oilskin coat you just hang it up on the clothes line and hose it down.

Actually it is possible to wash your oilskin coat, the method of doing it is as follows;

Wait till the lady of the house is out for the day, left you or gone shopping.

Go to the settings on your washing machine, set the water temperature to warm, 40degree C  or around 100degree F, gentle cycle, add a mild detergent, or, we recommend a soap used for washing woolens, then throw in your coat, be sure that you don't add anything else, just the coat. then hit the START button.

So far so good.

Now when the washing cycle is finished take the coat out. You may notice that the coat feels a little gooey, this is normal as what you have done is to solidify the wax to release the dirt particles and as it cools this will dissipate. You  will also notice that same gooey substance in a thick ring around the inside of your washing machine.

When it has dried you may notice that there are patches on the coat where there is almost no wax left. Again this is not a problem and often you don't need to use reproofing waxes. What you do is to throw the coat into your clothes dryer on full heat for about 15 minutes, when the waxes pass their melting point which is about 70 degree C they will automatically start to migrate to those areas with little to no wax on them.

If you find that after you remove the coat from the dryer that it is still patchy then you will need to apply the reproofing wax to those areas, then throw the coat back into the dryer and repeat the process.

At this point you may be feeling the blood drain from your body for fear of what is coming when the little woman finds out what you have done to her washing machine. Fear not, help is here, next week I will be writing about your new favorite subject!

"How to clean your washing machine after you have used it to wash your oilskin coat"   This will be in my next blog post so i hope you are around to read it. 

    We have added this picture as a reminder to those of you that don't take using the wife's washing machine seriously.

The guy is smiling because he made it out of the house in one piece.

He is holding the dog for his own protection.

And that is not really an old coat. It's what is left of the one he washed after she got through with it.

Also, this is not my real name so I can deny telling you about how to wash your coat.