The Care and Keeping of Your Busy Dress

The VERY FIRST time my (Rebecca’s) daughter wore her Airplanes Busy Dress. She did the following:

• Ate a egg and cheese bagel sandwich (messy)
• Had her first egg cream with her grandpa (more messy, but delicious)

• Ate a ripe avocado  (even more messy) 
• Helped her grandma bake a pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting (the yummiest and the messiest)

When the day was done, here’s what her dress looked like:

And the VERY FIRST time Eva’s daughter wore her Cars Busy Dress, she did the following:

• Found her mother’s purse while her mother was busy taking care of three other children
• Found her mother’s chapstick inside her mother’s purse
• Opened said chapstick and rubbed it all over her dress

And then… despite having literally written the care label that clearly instructs to “Lay flat to dry,” Eva accidentally threw the dress in the dryer.

Oy.

If any of this sounds like something that has happened in your house (please don’t tell us we’re the only ones who have kids who wreak havoc on things the first time they wear them. if we are, then really don't tell us.), then you will be happy to know that chapstick, avocado, egg cream, and cream cheese frosting were no match for the Busy Dress.

Eva…yeah, Eva didn’t do that. Instead, the Cars Busy Dress went through the washer and dryer without any special handling at all. When Eva pulled it out, she thought she had ruined it.

There were chapstick stains all down the front.

The solid blue fabric (which is 92% cotton) had shrunken around the applique.

The applique fabric (which contains no cotton), of course had not shrunk, so it was poofing up and some of the stitching was tight.

Luckily, this was not Eva’s first Bad Laundry Moment. First, she soaked the dress in cold water. Next, she carefully worked the stains out with Oxi Clean and Shout. Since the dress was sopping wet and needed to stretch anyway, she hung it upside down with eight clothespins, keeping the skirt open.

When the dress was nearly dry, she used a medium-hot iron on steam setting to relax the fabric, pulling the cotton gently away from the polyester applique. When she was done, the dress was as good as new.

Tragically, there are no pictures of this ordeal because at the time Eva’s 4-year-old son had hidden her phone in a Lego Ninjago boat after changing the language settings to Greek and putting it on mute.  But here’s a picture of it five washes later:

Vroooom!

If you have a Bad Laundry Moment with your Busy Dress, feel free to shoot us an e-mail (info@princess-awesome.com) and we'll help you trouble-shoot your way back to good-as-new dress!