Maintenance and Storage for Sarees

It’s been a rainy week ahead of Christmas! The saree is a simple Suta luga ( cotton) Jagatsingpur weave from Odisha. A humble but elegant weave, again easy on the pocket. The deep turquoise shade is one I love but don’t find easily. Matched it with a turquoise and coral necklace and earrings that a friend put together for me from my beads. 

I have been getting repeated queries about how I maintain my sarees. Sharing notes from my post on a saree group. Hope you find these helpful. 

Long read alert:

Many of you who have followed my posts know by now, I am a resident of California, USA for nearly 3 decades. 

Contrary to the glamorous ideas about California, I am sorry to say, some of the worst polluted cities in this country happen to be in California. I live in one such city in central California. The air quality is poor due to various reasons. A lot of people, me included, suffer from chronic cough and allergies. But not withstanding the pollution , it is much easier to maintain sarees here than it is in Mumbai. 

We move around in air conditioned surroundings here. Home, car, work places . Dust, sweat, rain etc., are not issues. Therefore, even after wearing for an entire day , the saree remains good enough for wear again and again. 

In contrast, when I come to India, mostly Mumbai and Pune, within a few hours I am ready to dump the saree as well as myself under water. 

So, in summary, I am not the right person to be asked "how do you maintain your sarees?" 

In my rather protected surroundings it is not much difficult to "maintain" sarees.

I salute all the ladies who live in India who regularly wear sarees. It is by far a more challenging task to do there. But you have some advantages too. Most often than not you have house help to wash your clothes and the easy access to laundry and dry cleaning services.

Cottons, easy to wash at home . Most can be washed even in the washing machine. Better to put them in a net bag if washing in the machine. I periodically use homemade starch from sabudana to make some cottons look crisp. Store bought starch was disappointing.

Do not dry any saree in direct sun if you want to protect its color.

I have very bad experiences with dry cleaning of sarees. My wedding saree (yellow one from mama) was ruined by the dry cleaners. So as long as I can, I defer dry cleaning. But at some point the saree has to be cleaned. I stretch it till that point . Basically, I give up on that saree after that. If it comes back from dry cleaning in good condition I consider myself lucky. 

Several of my precious sarees (paithanis, kanjeevarams) have never been dry cleaned. I use them with extreme care and then put them back in place .

Some silks I have mustered the courage and washed by hand at home , using gentle soap . And they survived the trial.

Others were not so fortunate.

Let’s talk about storage.

My every day “work“ sarees , mostly cottons, stay on hangers in my closet. These range from Odisha cotton Ikats, kotpads, Bengal cottons , Kanchi cottons, Hubli sarees, Patteda Anchus, khadi cottons, Lucknowi Chikan cottons, cotton Ajrakhs, an occasional Assam cotton or Goan Kunbi and a lot of linen sarees.

One discipline I follow is to iron the saree after every use and keep it back in place. Occasionally it may again need ironing BEFORE use but mostly it does not. It is ready to pull from the hanger and drape. 

I may add here that I LOVE ironing. Next to buying and draping sarees, comes my love for ironing them 😁. It is a very relaxing task even after a long tiring day.

The medium range silks, cotton paithanis, tussars etc are stored in canvas boxes with steel frames, in their respective groupings. 

See the photo of a sample box. These boxes are relatively recent finds on Amazon India. They stack one over another. Each has a zip on the top surface as well as one on the front facing surface for convenience. They come in different sizes. You may choose the size to suit your cupboard or shelf. They can hold from 6-20 sarees in each depending on the size of the box. I spread out a few cloves (lavanga) in each box to prevent insects.

The more expensive sarees, heirloom sarees, sentimental sarees are pampered most 😁. 

For these I got some muslin bags stitched. Each bag can hold one or at most 2 sarees. I throw in a couple of cloves (lavang) with the saree in each bag.

And then these bags are stored in a large cedar trunk that I found in an antique store. I often muse to myself that if a burglar comes looking for bounty in my house and peeks into this trunk he may be disappointed because there are no jewels hidden in there. Not for him anyways. But these are my treasures. 

Ideally, the silks should be opened once a month or in 2 months to air and sunlight. But I will admit that I don’t regularly do that. I do it when I realize it’s been a long time. 

Ideally it is also recommended to change the way the folds are placed. But again, I am not diligent about it. 

Ideally you should wear your sarees frequently. Now finally there is one thing I can say I do 😁.

Love your sarees, wear them frequently is my mantra. But at the end of the day, remind myself, that just like everything else we can see with our eyes and touch with our hands, these are naashvant (perishable) objects. You must let them go someday. 

For those of you who managed reading this post till the end, congratulations 🎊. You must surely love me enough to hold this patience. 😁.

Those who quit earlier, my apologies. 😁

P.S courtesy Anita Kadagad Kembhavi, recipe for the sabudana homemade starch for sarees:

For 3 cotton sarees soak 1 katori of sabudana at night. Next day blend in mixer and add about 4-5 liters of water and boil. Keep stirring continuously till it becomes transparent and cool by continuously stirring. Make 3 parts of it. Separately soak washed sarees, wring and dry neatly. Keep separating the layers of saree, or else they will stick. 😓 ready 😊 but it gives a uniform glaze and I wear them nearly 4-5 times.