Velveteen JSKs Restoration: The Cleaning (Black Dress)

Project 13, part 3 – Actual Stain Removal This Time (Part 1, part 2 here)

Welcome back to Mukashi no Sewing! Last time I found that on the red dress the ivory lace was always intended to be ivory, but this time there were actual stains on the lace of the black dress that needed cleaning. 😀

I wasn’t as worried about the black dye of this dress running, but I still wanted to spot test to ensure I wouldn’t have any issues.

I really didn’t want to immerse the entire dress in water, so I decided to try a new technique for spot-cleaning! I’d heard about “Nellie’s WOW Stick” from some fellow lolitas on Discord (who saw it on TikTok), and I picked it up along with a new spray bottle so I didn’t risk any contamination from prior solutions in the bottle.

I saturated the lace with water, then scrubbed it with the WOW Stick, and then headed over to the sink…

…where I spent just AGES rinsing it out. The sensation was awful. It was slimy…but not like soap? Just…weird? It is utterly impossible to overstate how stressful this process was for me. I literally had to stop multiple times, go to another sink, wash and dry my hands, and then return to the rinsing. I felt crazier than usual because my hands were already wet and soapy, but at the same time, I absolutely needed the mental relief of cleaning them properly. I wouldn’t really want to do this again if I could help it, at least for as long as this took me.

But…it worked! Regrettably, I had to actually do the process twice because the first time I didn’t rinse it out enough, and the tips of the lace ended up yellow while the rest was white. By the second round (and with me completely out of sanity points), though, the lace was clean! Who knows how long those stains had been there – this dress is over 20 years old – but they either came out entirely or were lightened to the point that they weren’t visible at arm’s length which is my general requirement. 🙂

I’m really pleased that this worked so well, and now that both dresses are clean I can turn my attention to replacing the neck ties and sewing a headdress to complete the set for my red velvet dress! So join me next time to find out just how hard it can be to find matching velveteen here on Mukashi no Sewing! ❤