Fabric Care in Kolkata — Humidity, Iron in Water and Handloom Cotton

In parts of the city served by groundwater, dissolved iron oxidises on contact with air and detergent and deposits as a faint yellow-brown cast. On white cotton it reads as ageing rather than staining, which is why it is usually attributed to the garment rather than the water.

Chlorine bleach makes iron staining worse, not better, by fixing the oxide. Where iron is suspected, the correct treatments are an oxygen-based approach or a mild acidic treatment, and the long-term fix is filtration at the supply rather than anything done in the machine.

Tant cotton is woven loosely and starched to give it body. Machine agitation stretches the weave out of square and strips the starch unevenly, which is why a tant saree that has been through a washing machine never hangs the same way again.

Hand washing in cool water with minimal wringing, drying flat or over a wide support rather than a thin line, and re-starching lightly if the drape has gone soft will keep the fabric behaving as it should for years.

Baluchari and other figured silks are protein fibres, and protein fibre stored damp is a substrate for mould as well as an attractant for insects. The characteristic musty smell in a Kolkata almirah is biological growth, not stale air.

Store silk clean and fully dry, in breathable cotton wrapping rather than plastic, with space for air to move. Air stored pieces a few times a year in indirect light, and never in direct sun, which fades silk dye quickly.