4 Tips For Cleaning Your Sleeping Bag After A Festival

The partying is over, your hair has a certain grubby feeling to it and the real world beckons. That’s right, Glastonbury Festival is over for another year and now the cleanup on-site and in your washing machine begins. 

As tempting as it may be to leave your sleeping bag rolled up and pretend it doesn’t exist, cleaning it sooner rather than later is probably for the best, especially if you don’t want to find yourself months down the line remembering that it hasn’t been seen to and has THAT scent. 

HuffPost UK spoke with Catherine Green, a cleaning expert at smol to learn exactly what we need to do to get our sleeping bags thoroughly clean.

Get your sleeping bag clean in four easy steps

Before anything else, check the care label for the temperature your sleeping bag should be washed at, and in fact, if it is safe for the washing machine. If it is safe in a machine, Green recommends the following tips:

First, turn it inside-out

Before doing anything else, turn your sleeping bag inside-out.

Green said: “This protects the outer shell and makes sure the inside gets clean. Completely unzip your sleeping bag but then run the zip halfway up the strip of teeth so that it doesn’t fall off in the wash.”

Chuck a couple of tennis balls in (yes, really)

It may not be the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to doing laundry but Green explained that this is essential for keeping the structure of the sleeping bag in check.

She said: “Throw in a couple of tennis balls into the washing machine. They’ll bounce around inside the drum and stop the stuffing from clumping together. Make sure to choose a delicate cycle and a cold wash (20°C) setting.”

Use a good quality bleach-free detergent

Turns out, sleeping bags are very delicate when it comes to being laundered. With this in mind, Green recommends opting for a bleach-free detergent.

Green explained: “They’re low-foaming and high-efficiency which means they’re gentle on fabrics but tough on grime and won’t damage the delicate fibres of your sleeping bag.”

Skip the fabric softener 

As much as fabric softener can be tempting as it gives a lovely smell and softens textures, Green recommends skipping it for this task, saying, “I would strictly avoid fabric softeners as they can coat the down or synthetic fill in a film, making it difficult for your sleeping bag to trap heat.”

Which would be a disaster, to be fair.

How to hand-wash a sleeping bag

If you have found yourself with a sleeping bag that won’t withstand the washing machine, Green recommends the following steps for hand-washing it:

• Completely zip it up first
• Run your bath with enough warm water to cover the sleeping bag and add laundry liquid
• Submerge your sleeping bag and give it a good (but gentle!) massage
• Let it soak here for 1-4 hours
• Drain the dirty water and rinse your sleeping bag with clean water until the soap has gone
• Lay it flat in the bath and roll it up to squeeze out the water. Avoid wringing or scrunching your sleeping bag as this could damage the filling

Good luck! Hopefully there’s not too much mud.