Others often envy a dog owner until they have a look at your house. As a pet parent to a dog, having dog hair all over your place is inevitable.
How to Get Dog Hair Out of Your Clothes?- It is frustrating to clean up as the hair doesn’t just sit on the floor but also floats around, clinging on to just about everything in your house,
leaving every surface covered with dog hair. Learning how to get dog hair out of clothes seems like an impossible task, but it isn’t!
Despite being a massive problem, it can be effectively resolved using just a few regular cleaning supplies like vinegar, sponges, and simple practices. You can get rid of the extra layer of pet hair over your clothes, irrespective of how delicate the fabric is.
What Causes Pet Hair to Cling?
It is essential to understand the primary cause for pet hair to stick to deal with the problem. Static caused due to friction is the culprit that causes pet hair to latch onto clothing. Depending on how tightly knit the fabric is, pet hair manages to wedge into the available gaps.
Another factor is the source of fiber. Since natural fibers like cotton & jute have more texture, pet hair tends to stick to them compared with synthetic fibers.
How Can Static be Prevented?
All the methods stated below deal with solving the problem of excessive static that causes dog hair to cling onto fabric. The easiest way to reduce static & thus detach hair from the cloth is by introducing another surface for the hair to latch on to or by widening the gaps between fibers & allowing the hair to ease out.
Can Excessive Shedding be Prevented?
Prevention is better than cure. When practiced regularly, these preventive techniques can save you a lot of time & effort & result in having to deal with minimal shedding.
Regular Grooming
Visiting a professional groomer every two months can help in building a healthy & shiny coat & tackling regular shedding effectively. It also helps in noticing unusually excessive shedding issues at the earliest & results in a happy & healthy pet.
Brushing
By making brushing a daily habit, tangles can be avoided & loose hair can be removed while bonding with your pet. If not daily, brushing is recommended at least once or twice a week to reduce shedding.
Bathing
Giving your regular dog baths is a great idea to keep it clean as well as get any loose hair off of its body.
These hair strands are bound to end up on your floors anyway, so it is better to get them out beforehand to keep your floors clean, reducing the need to vacuum & keep pet hair away from your clothes.
Vacuuming
Regular vacuuming not only helps to keep your house in a tidy & presentable condition, but it also ensures that shed pet hair is picked up right away, therefore dealing with the problem immediately & reducing the possibility of spreading across furnishings & clothes.
These are some of the ways through which the shedding of pet hair can be minimized. Although there is no way to prevent sticking to clothes permanently, there are multiple ways involving the use of simple products at different stages to ensure the removal of pet hair from your clothing.
How to Get Dog Hair Out of Your Clothes?
Before Tossing Them into the Washing Machine
Simply cleaning the clothes by putting them in a washing machine may not be the best way to get rid of the hair stuck on them
. While it may help to a certain extent, it only causes blockages in the filter of your washing machine in the long run and will most definitely require the use of another method to complete the unfinished task.
However, using the following products before putting them in the wash cycle can help remove pet hair from the garments.
Shake it Off
Although it may sound silly, simply shaking off your clothes can get rid of pet hair when there’s a lot that has accumulated on it. The beginning step can help make the remaining methods stated below more effective.
Sponge
Due to its texture, using a dry sponge in one direction can help in picking up hair strands from various surfaces- be it chairs, clothing, bedding, etc.
A sponge is guaranteed to produce results as long as it is used in a particular direction across the surface coated with pet hair. In case a dry sponge fails to pick up all of the hair, you can slightly wet the sponge.
Rubber Gloves
Using rubber gloves on pet hair-covered clothes creates static, which causes the hair to stick to the gloves instead of the clothes.
In case a dry glove does not make the hair detach, slightly dampening the glove will give better results. After cleaning, hot water to soak the gloves can help separate the hair from the gloves, making disposal easy.
Lint Rollers/Brushes
Lint rollers have become an everyday use item for picking up balls of lint that remain on garments after washing and drying them, and these rollers also have another use- that of picking up pet hair! The paper is slightly sticky, quickly picking up hair from the clothes.
Unlike using a sponge, where you will have to pick up and dispose of the accumulated hair manually, a lint roller/brush comes with the advantage of holding the hair on the product until you are ready to dispose of the hair.
DIY- Anti Static Spray
To loosen the hair from the apparel, static needs to be eliminated. To do this is in the most cost-effective way using the supplies you have at hand, try mixing fabric softener and fabric conditioner and diluting it to bring it to a sprayable consistency.
This will help soften your clothes, and with a little bit of rubbing using any of the supplies listed here, the pet hair should easily detach. This can even be used as a preventive measure on furniture, upholstery, etc.
Tape
Using pieces of tape to get pet hair off of clothes is another popular and inexpensive way that is also used to get lint off. A disadvantage of this method is that it is not reusable, meaning that once a piece of tape is used to pick up pet hair & it loses its stickiness, it cannot be reused.
Dryer/Steamer
Before tossing the clothing stuck with pet hair into the washing machine, using a gentle heating mechanism to soften your clothes & loosen the fibers is ideal.
This can help in dislodging the hair, thereby saving your washing machine filter and pumps from blockages and breakdowns.
Using a dryer to run a brief cycle would be best to soften your garments. In case a dryer is inaccessible, the use a handheld steamer that is usually used to smooth out wrinkles from clothing can also do the task.
Now that some of the pet hair has been removed, putting these clothes in the washing machine poses a minor threat to its working.
Vinegar
Vinegar is a commonly used cleaning ingredient & can help in removing pet hair from your laundry. Using about ½ cup to 1 cup of vinegar while running the washing machine can help in softening the fabric, reducing the possibility for hair to latch onto clothes.
After such use, the lint filter should be emptied & the drum/ tub of the washing machine should be wiped with a wet cloth.
After the washing cycle is completed, any remaining pet hair can still be removed during the drying stage.
Dryer Sheets
These sheets work towards softening your clothes in the dryer. As stated before, static can be reduced by softening the fabric, causing any pet hair to detach from the material.
In case you do not have a dryer, you can still use a dryer sheet in the same way that a sponge is to be used. This product also leaves the clothes smelling great.
Wool Dryer Balls
Used in the same manner, wool dryer balls are exclusively used in the dryer to help dry clothes faster.
These balls are natural & reusable & lack the pungent smell that dryer sheets come with & have proven to reduce the drying time compared to dryer sheets. Such dryer balls reduce friction and cause pet hair to detach from the fabric, resolving the problem.
Thus, we come to the conclusion of how to remove dog hair from clothes. Removing dog hair is not a big deal and can be quickly done using some simple life hacks and household items.
