Welcome to The Dollhouse

Burlesque costumes are tricky things — and not just because of the interesting ways they come off. We make them of impractical materials, whether it's highly luxurious items, like silk, fur, feathers, and rhinestones, or funky things, like cardboard, macaroni, CD shards, or chains. We use them hard during rehearsals and abuse them on stage — tossing, tearing, kicking, and dropping onto a stage of dubious cleanliness. As much as we might not want to admit it, we sweat into them. And then there are the inevitable stains: lipstick, wine, coffee, and some more creative than that...

All this makes for a costume that's very hard to clean without ruining. And sometimes you desperately need to clean it. Just last night I had one of those cleaning emergencies.

Here in New England it's been raining a lot, all summer, and yesterday was no exception. I was on my way to teach Introduction to Burlesque with a suitcase full of costumes -- that evening's class included a little talk on costumes and I'd brought some show and tell. As I said, it was raining and I guess my suitcase isn't as waterproof as I thought. One of the costumes I brought was for "Blue Angel", which I'm performing at The Wrathskellar in just over a week. It has a beautiful skirt/veil that Betty Blaize hand-dyed for me -- white silk gradually turns to pale blue and then deep blue.

It had gotten wet. Another costume had bled onto it. There were bright orange stains all over the white silk. Did I mention the show opens in 10 days?

I didn't panic. I have a lot of experience with cleaning difficult stuff, between my museum studies education and years of making costumes. I teach a class on burlesque costume care. I have resources and secret formulae. Okay, I panicked a little.

I knew I couldn't use bleach on it. Chlorine bleach is terrible for silk and can damage the structure of the fabric as well as turning it an unpleasant color, and I didn't want to ruin the blue parts. After mulling over several options, I realized I had just the stuff -- Dylon Run-Away. It's meant for when a red sock gets in with your white laundry and turns everything pink. I knew I'd have to be careful, for several reasons.

First, the stuff is really caustic. Rubber gloves are an absolute must. Second, I needed to avoid getting the blue parts in the mix. It wouldn't cause as much damage as chlorine bleach, but better safe than sorry. After donning my gloves, I put about half a packet in a small tub and added hot water. It's actually important that the water is added to the dry powder. If I'd been even more careful (and I should have been), I'd have worn a dust mask when pouring the powder -- I'm not kidding about caustic.

I carefully lowered the stained part into the bath. After a few minutes, I could already see the stain lessening, but I left in for an hour anyway, occasionally giving everything a swish. The blue part stayed dry throughout. After an hour, there was no trace of orange! I rinsed thoroughly and then gave the whole thing a gentle wash (washing machine, handwash cycle, no soap. Color Catcher sheet just in case there was any lose dye).

Another triumph of cleaning.

Now that you've read my whole long story, I open the floor to you, Dear Readers. Do you have a burlesque costume cleaning question or emergency? Comment here and I'll do my best to give you some advice.