Keep Those Perfect Stockings
Perfect for Longer

Have you found the perfect stockings for the 1920s to 1950s fashion conscious girl about town? Are you one of those girls who adores retro stockings, but who tears and snags them with ruinous regularity? Does your stocking budget exceed your grocery budget?

You need a solution and I am here to give you one. But what is it that you are doing wrong?

Well, there are several culprits at work here:

• Wearing the wrong size hosiery,
• Washing your poor delicate little frillies with harsh chemicals,
• snagging and catching them during washing or dressing.

But the worst culprit for ruining your perfect stockings is...yes, putting them in the dryer. You knew that, didn't you? Well, they’re all bad, aren’t they?

"But what can you do?", you ask me in the trembling voice you save for asking that sort of question. Is there anything you can do? Will you be doomed to wander, all raggedy though the ages, wearing shredded stockings?

No, you will not. You will beat this, darling, I promise. And I'll even give you my secret method of "curing" the nylon that has worked for me for simply EVER.

Oh, all right. Stop pestering. I'll give you the secret first.

The Secret to Keeping Perfect Stockings Perfect for Longer

1. Put on some gloves. Of course you have gloves, darling! And they need washing every so often too. I wash my gloves at the same time I wash my nylons, so they get beautifully clean together.

2. Lay a towel in the sink or basin that covers the bottom of the basin. This will prevent snags on the drain fixture. Fill the basin with warm water (not hot).

3. Remove your new and utterly perfect stockings from the wrapper and gently immerse them in the water. Swish them around to get them thoroughly wet, then let them soak for a few minutes. Lift them out, perhaps two at a time and squeeze out the excess water.

4. Pour a little bit of liquid soap--NOT detergent! It must be soap!--onto the wet stockings as you hold them in your gloved hands. Squeeze the soap gently through the fabric. No need to rub or scrub.

5. Rinse in cool water, with a little---very little----liquid starch added. Perhaps 1/4 tsp. per gallon of rinse water.

6. While the stockings are still dripping wet, put them in a plastic bag that has a zip closure. Put the bag in the freezer and let the water freeze solid. I leave mine there overnight but that is because I forget that I put them there till I am looking for frozen mango chunks in the morning and am delighted to find them there.

Darling! Blondes LOVE surprises!

7. DO NOT TAKE YOUR NYLONS OUT OF THE BAG UNTIL THEY ARE THOROUGHLY THAWED!

8. Put on your gloves again. Oh sweetie! Stop fussing about the gloves! If you love retro stockings you really ought to be wearing gloves too. Remove the nylons from the bag, wrap them in a towel and press to remove the water from them (no wringing or twisting, please) and then hang them to dry--needless to say, you must hang them on something that won't catch or snag them. We want them to STAY perfect stockings for a little while longer.

That is the secret of "curing" the nylon. I repeat the soap/starch/freezer treatment every so often. It seems to toughen the nylon a little, and though it's not absolute proof against any of the vicissitudes to which nylon hosiery is heir, this method has worked for me.

I have had one pair of perfect stockings for well over a year. They are my lucky pair. Sadly, they are wearing out, but there are NO SNAGS OR RUNS, darling! Really!

Now, curing the nylon won’t solve all your problems, but here are some other tips to keep your pretty retro stockings beautifully smooth and unladdered:

1. Wear a silky, slippery slip under your skirt. That acts as a protective layer that the fabric of your skirt alone will not necessarily provide. If your skirt is lined with silk satin or acetate satin, that should be sufficient.

2. Check before you sit! Look at the surface you are going to be putting against your perfect stockings. You may have to sit on the very edge of your seat if it is splintery or rough, or you may spread a newspaper over the seat. No, darling, you don’t have to read the newspaper.

3. For pity’s sake, take off your jewelry when you are handling your nylons!

4. Wear gloves when putting on or taking off your stockings. At very least keep your cuticles soft and your nails smooth, and keep toenails and heels smooth too.

5. Use a washing product that is formulated specifically for washing nylon stockings, such as Ovacion or Hosiery Mate. Many hand wash products use polymers that bond to the nylon fibers and strengthen them.

6. Wear the correct size. If they are too loose, the excess material is more likely to catch on something. If they are too tight, the tightness of the nylon will cause any little snag to zip into a long ladder instantly.

"What should you do if you DO get a little hole in one of your stockings?", you ask me with a pitiable quaver in your voice.

Well, darling, the important thing is to stop the hole from growing larger. Since hosiery fabric is knitted, any little break in the thread causes the threads above and below that broken spot to loosen themselves, and a hole then "runs" from the original break up and down the whole stocking.

Disaster, darling!

To stop runs before they start, dab a little clear nail polish around the edge of the tear and allow it to dry. This will bind the knitted fibers together and prevent the hole from enlarging under normal circumstances (see above about wearing the correct size!).

If you have no nail polish, you may use a squirt of hair spray, most kinds of tape, the sticky part of a band-aid or even a dab of chapstick (really!) to prevent the hole from spreading until you can get to your nail polish.

Au revoir, my dearest darlings,

~Odette Dubois