Ladies, is your favourite stylish womens raincoat starting to let water in? This is normal, it happens after a while. Don’t throw it away, save money, you can make it waterproof again.
As long as the lining is still well attached to the waterproof, it has hope. There are a range of treatments available make your raincoat waterproof again. There are sprays, waxes and wash formulas.
It is so much cheaper to re-waterproof your raincoat than to throw it away and buy a new one, and if you are fond of the coat and it fits well, you’re better off giving it a new lease of life rather than spending money and shopping time on a new one that you might not like as much.
Waterproof coats have a protective coating that causes moisture to roll off rather than sink in. After some time of wearing the coat in bad weather, the coating starts to wear off, but it can be replaced. You will be able to see when the waterproofing is wearing off as instead of rolling off, drops of water will settle on the coat and start to sink in, often darkening the fabric, and you will notice that your coat doesn’t hold the rain off as well as it used to.
How to waterproof your raincoat
The first thing you do may go against everything you’ve been told. You wash your coat, put it in the washing machine. Yes, you may have been told never to wash your raincoat but it is the best thing to do. You can get special waterproofing wash solutions which may solve the waterproofing problem in one, but make sure you get the right solution as there are different types for different coats.
Put the machine on a synthetics cycle and/or heavy soiled, but before you do, check the coat over thoroughly for damage that would make it irredeemable, and check all those pockets for tissues, mint cakes and other items. Dry your coat in the dryer if possible, some have to be hung to dry, but a tumble dryer’s heat helps to activate the waterproofing.
Once the coat is dry, check it over. If you have used a special washing solution for it, check for waterproofing – see if drops of water will roll off it.
If you washed the coat without a waterproofing solution or if it still isn’t fully waterproof, you can then use a spray on waterproofing material or a wax that you rub on. This should be sufficient if it is evenly spread over the coat. Once you’ve done this treatment and it has dried, check it over again to make sure it is fully waterproof.
Check that there are no holes or tears as well, and if there are, you can get a repair kit and iron on patches to mend small areas.
When all this is done, your womens raincoat should be waterproof, clean and smart, all set for trekking or rainy days and nights in the town. You may find that your raincoat feels a little bit heavier after treatment, but that is normal.
