Kids don't ruin kids clothes. Heat does. Nearly everything that comes out of a wash shrunken, stretched at the knee, stiff or pilled went through heat it wasn't built to survive.
The trouble is that a mixed load of children's clothes is five different materials at once, and they want five different things. Below is what each one asks for, taken from the care lines we put on the listings themselves.
Cotton and organic cotton
Machine wash cold on a gentle cycle, tumble dry low.
Most of what we carry is plain cotton, and it's the forgiving material in the pile. Cold water isn't only about being gentle. It keeps color where it belongs and it doesn't set a stain into the fiber the way hot water does. Tumble dry low rather than high, because the shrinkage in a cotton tee happens almost entirely in the dryer and not in the wash. The tops shelf is nearly all cotton, and all of it lives by that one line.
Cotton with elastane or spandex
Machine wash cold on a gentle cycle, don't tumble dry, reshape while damp.
This is the group people get wrong most often, because it looks like cotton and feels like cotton. Leggings, joggers, ribbed pieces and anything that stretches back into shape has a few percent of elastane in it, and elastane is a rubber type fiber. Hot air breaks it. A legging that has gone baggy at the knee and loose at the waist usually met a hot dryer once, not fifty wearings.
Take it out wet, pull the waistband and the knees back to shape with your hands, lay it flat and walk away. The pants and leggings shelf is where most of these sit.
Wool, merino and mohair
Hand wash cold, don't wring, lay flat to dry.
Two things kill a wool knit and neither is dirt. The first is agitation in warm water, which mats the fibers together permanently, and that's what a machine cycle is. The second is hanging a soaking knit on a hanger, where the weight of the water pulls the whole thing longer while it dries.
So press the water out between two towels instead of twisting it, then lay the knit flat and put it back into its own shape while it's wet. The wool and the heavier knits are on the Stay Warm shelf.
Anything that says lay flat to dry
Machine wash cold on a gentle cycle, lay flat to dry.
Viscose blends, lace knits, cotton and modal mixes and some lined pieces sit here. They can take a machine, but they can't take being hung wet or tumbled. Same reasoning as wool, applied more gently.
Leather and suede
Wipe clean with a soft damp cloth and air dry away from direct heat.
Leather never goes in a machine, and it never goes on a radiator or in front of a heater to speed things up. Leather that dries fast goes stiff, and a stiff shoe cracks across the toe where it bends every step. Wipe it, then leave it somewhere with moving air and give it a day.
Suede is the same rule with less water. Damp cloth, light touch, air dry, and let it come back on its own. Most of the shoe shelf is leather, so this is the paragraph that matters if you're buying shoes here.
Canvas shoes
Wipe clean or hand wash cold, air dry, don't tumble dry.
A canvas shoe is held together partly by glue, and hot water plus a tumble is exactly how a sole starts lifting at the toe. Cold hand wash, air dry, stuff them loosely with paper if they need to hold their shape.
Faux fur
Hand wash cold or spot clean, air dry, don't tumble dry.
Heat mats the pile flat and it doesn't come back. Spot clean where you can and hand wash only when you've to.
Corduroy and velvet look alike and aren't
These two split, and the split surprises people. Most of the corduroy here says machine wash cold on a gentle cycle and tumble dry low, the same as cotton. The velvet pieces say wipe clean with a soft damp cloth and air dry away from direct heat, the same as leather. Two fabrics with a similar nap and two opposite instructions, so read the piece rather than the category.
Four rules that hold across the whole pile
Cold first, always. Heat sets a stain into the fiber. If something has landed on a shirt, cold water goes on it before anything warm does.
Turn printed pieces inside out. A print wears from friction against everything else in the drum, not from the water.
Never wring anything knitted. Press the water out flat instead. Twisting is what puts a permanent bend into a sleeve.
The sewn label wins. If the label inside the garment says something different from a chart on a website, including this one, follow the label. It came from the people who made the piece.
Where to find this on the piece you're buying
Nearly every listing in this shop carries its own Fabric and care block with the material and the wash line for that exact piece. Where a label doesn't give a full fiber breakdown, we write that plainly on the page instead of inventing a percentage. If you want a photograph of the actual sewn label before you order, write to us and we'll send one.
Everything ships from Brooklyn, shipping inside the United States is free, and you've 30 days to send a piece back unworn and with its tags if it turns out not to suit you.