Caring for your icebreaker

icebreaker merino clothing is designed to be easy for you to care for. As always it's important to check the label of each individual garment for instructions but in general, they recommend that you wash your icebreaker garments on a normal warm or cool machine wash cycle with regular powder or liquid detergent. 

Top Tips For Washing Merino Wool

• Wash like colours together (e.g separate light & dark colours)
• Wash prints inside out
• Close all zips
• Use warm or cool machine wash on a normal cycle (avoid a hot wash, as this contributes to shrinkage)
• Use regular detergent, not wool detergent
• Avoid using fabric softener as this will coat the merino fibres & reduce their performance
• Do not use bleach as the chlorine will destroy the fine merino fibres
• Wash occasionally with denim (e.g. jeans with the zip closed) or other coarse fabrics to remove any loose fibres
• Do not iron prints or labels
• Line dry garments – do not tumble dry (except socks, you can tumble dry merino socks inside out on a low heat)

Pilling:

How to prevent it & how to treat it

Pilling is a natural process that is inherent in merino fabric due to the fact that merino is a staple fibre. Generally, if pilling occurs, it’s because the shorter fibres are working their way to the surface of the fabric.

The best way to avoid pilling is to wash a new icebreaker within 3 wears. To alleviate the pilling, we suggest that you wash the garment with a coarser fabric such as denim jeans (ensure all zippers are closed). The fabric will improve overtime as the shorter fibres are removed.

Can Wool Detergent be

used on icebreaker garments?

The structure of Merino is actually quite different than regular wool. icebreaker fabric is designed to be washed on a regular cycle with regular detergent. Interestingly, detergents that are designed especially for woollens are suitable for use on coarser wool but often contain softeners that can actually damage the finer Merino fibres, potentially causing holes or general fabric deterioration.

Garments & Odour

Merino fibres have the characteristic of drawing moisture away from the body and either absorbing or releasing this moisture, this eliminates clamminess and ensures that the garment remains odour-free. The fibres work this way in icebreaker thermal tops and bottoms the same as they do in the sheep that supply our Merino wool.

We strongly recommend that our customers only wash their garments on a normal cool or warm wash cycle with regular washing powder. Hand washing can enable a residual build-up of perspiration which could contribute to an odour problem.