December 27, 2025, 8:42 am | Read time: 3 minutes
Silk has many great qualities: It’s breathable, wrinkle-free, comfortable to wear, and always looks great. It doesn’t matter whether it’s clothing or home textiles such as bed linens. However, the luxurious fabric is quite demanding in terms of care. myHOMEBOOK reveals what to consider when washing and ironing silk.
Dry Cleaning
A moment of inattention—and there’s a stain on the silk blouse. But you can’t just toss the luxurious fabric into the washing machine like a T-shirt. So, how should you properly wash silk? Dry cleaning is particularly gentle, ensuring the delicate fabric isn’t damaged during washing. Especially sensitive silk fabrics like chiffon or crepe should only be treated this way. You can always find instructions on the care label inside the garment.
Hand Washing
Many silk garments can also be cleaned with water. Hand washing is particularly gentle, and a special detergent for silk is recommended. Simply fill a bucket with cold water, add detergent, and let the garment soak for 30 minutes. Caution: Detergents for wool contain re-greasing substances that can make the material appear greasy.
It’s also crucial that the detergent doesn’t contain bleach, as this could damage colored silk. A mild shampoo without re-greasing substances, perfume, or dyes is also suitable for cleaning. Afterward, rinse in cold water, gently press dry with towels, and then lay flat to air dry.
Important: Never put silk in the dryer! If you decide to wash the material in the washing machine, always use an appropriate program and set the temperature to 0 degrees or the cold program.
How to Iron Silk Correctly
If a silk garment needs to be particularly wrinkle-free, you can iron it. Choose a low temperature on the iron. If the iron doesn’t have a specific silk setting, select the lowest possible setting.
Also important: Always iron silk fabrics inside out. If the garment is still slightly damp, wrinkles are less likely to form. You can also place a slightly damp cotton cloth over the silk. Another cotton cloth between the ironing board and the silk can prevent any color stains.
Also interesting: 5 Mistakes Almost Everyone Makes When Washing Bed Linens
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Properly Storing Silk Items
Since silk is a delicate natural fabric, certain storage guidelines should be followed. Silk fabrics can quickly fade if exposed to direct sunlight. For this reason, always store the material in a dark place—and, of course, don’t dry it in the sun.
Silk can also be infested by clothes moths. To protect clothing from them, you can place bags with strongly scented herbs like lavender or thyme in the closet. There are also chemical traps that help against clothes moths. If you want to store a garment because you only wear it in winter, for example, make sure to pack it well beforehand.
How Is Silk Made?
Silk is an animal material primarily composed of proteins. It is produced in small glands in the mouth of the silkworm caterpillar. The caterpillar wraps itself in the material to form a protective cocoon where it develops into a butterfly.
To obtain the silk, the cocoons are usually boiled in hot water—most of the animals die in the process. From an animal ethics perspective, this method is highly questionable. If you don’t want to support this practice but still want to use silk, you can opt for so-called wild silk. This is obtained “animal-friendly” from the cocoons of the free-living tussah moth. This means the silk is harvested only after the butterfly has left the cocoon.