How do I clean a 40yo christening dress?

[olien]

My Mom gave me my christening outfit to use for my DD. (OK, now you know how old I am) Anyway some areas of it are yellowing. Mainly on the stitching. It is 3 layers. The first layer is silk & looks great. The next two layers are a silkyish sheer material. Those are the problem layers. The top layer has leaves stitched on it & some of them are yellow as well as some of the other thread. Also it just needs to be cleaned.

I really dont want to ruin it. I realize some of the yellow may not come out, but I would like to minimize it if I could. Any thoughts on how to clean it??
Thanks.

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[philomom]

Honestly, I'd look in the yellow pages for a dry cleaner that is not afraid of vintage/antique items.

[zebra15]

Im not sure I would mess with it....are you ready to accept that if you try to clean it , the dress could be damaged,the fabric could be torn, fall apart, etc? Even the 'best' drycleaner cant always work miracles.

[olien]

I think I would be more nervous to get it dry cleaned than to carefully hand wash it myself.
I was just trying to figure out what to use to wash it with tho. woolite? natural goats milk soap that I use on my LOs?

[redvlagrl]

I would hand wash it myself. I would use luke warm water and a non-lanolin wool wash. Some yellowing just won't come out (it's actually discolouration, not stains). You'll probably have to live with it, but if it's special for you to use this dress, then I would do it.

Before you try hand washing, you could try sprinkling baking soda (dry) on the layers and hen carefully brushing it off.

It also depends if the materials are natural or synthetic. If it's all pure silk, then it will have weakened with age and I may not wash it at all, but deodorize it with the baking soda.

[St. Margaret]

I washed a 30 year old christening gown with woolite. I think my mom washed it first to prep it, I forget... but after the last guests left, just before I got DD out of it, BIG BF poo blowout! I washed it RIGHT away, terrified of staining for once, just very gently rinsing and washing with the woolite and it was fine. In great shape for the next baby girl!