How Do I Clean My Ski Gear?
- Henry
- Apr 17
- 6 min read
Laundering your ski gear is essential; not only to keep it fresh, but to ensure if performs to the best of its abilities. Here's how to clean your ski gear.
As it is the end of the season for many of you, it’s time to begin packing up the ski gear and hiding it away for the summer until the snow starts falling again. You should, as part of this, wash your gear, to ensure it is clean and fresh, ready to go again as soon as you need it.
Washing technical gear can be a scary experience. You’ve spent a lot of money of your ski gear, and, rightly, are worried that putting it through the washing machine risks damaging it, reducing its performance, and leaving you out of pocket.
But keeping your ski gear clean is essential, to reduce the risk of damage and long-term degradation of your gear, increase its performance, and ensure you are not spending money on a new ski jacket sooner than you should.
Here’s Skiing Unlocked’s guide to washing your ski gear, ready for your next week away or to keep it ready to go for when next season comes.
How Often Should I Wash Ski Gear?
I was dumbfounded to learn that several of the group of strangers I was skiing with in Flaine this March didn’t ever wash their ski gear. In their defence – not that it is much of one – they ski once a year, and air their gear out when they get home to get rid of any smells, and sponge off any muck or stains along the way.
Eww.
So yes, in short, you need to wash your ski gear. How often is a really good question, and, much in the same way as “how long as piece of string?”, there isn’t really an easy answer. The short answer is very much “whenever it needs to be washed”.
Put it another way; your ski gear is but another item of clothing, and we wash clothes depending on the intensity with which we use them and how dirty they get along the way. Sports gear we use for the gym or for running we wash after every use, because, by their inherent use, they get sweaty, dirty, and smelly, quickly. Shirts and jeans we can maybe stretch to a couple of wears before needing a washing, provided we’ve not run for too many busses and trains in that time – because our using of them does not generate as much dirty, grime, sweat and muck.
Your ski gear is no different. As a rule of thumb, I will wash my jacket and trousers after every two weeks of use, although if I have been getting particularly sweaty in things - perhaps by ski touring - or if they have picked up strong food such as from restaurants and cafes, I will reduce this. This generally means a mid-season and an end-of-season wash for me, and that schedule works for me; this year I did 32 skiing days (not that I'm showing off ...), so I got a wash in after day 20, perhaps a bit late but January was busy!
For most of you only doing a week or two each year, an end-of-season wash is more than enough to keep everything fresh.
How do I Wash GoreTex/Waterproof Gear?
Washing technical gear, such as your waterproof and/or GoreTex ski jacket, is much easier than you think.
To start with, you will need something call techwash – this is a particular type of laundry detergent designed to work specifically with technical fabrics like waterproof ski jackets. It is very gentle, and many of them are now produced free from “forever chemicals”, a type of PFC that does not breakdown in the natural environment and can be very damaging to wildlife and humans.
The best places to buy these are in any good outdoor shop, and you’ll find two major brands – Grangers and Nikwax. Grangers tends to be more common in the UK and Ireland, whereas Nikwax is often the preference of North American shops; in my experience, both can be found almost everywhere. Occasionally, brands will have their own detergents, but brand loyalty is not necessary here. I have no reservations recommending either of the above brands for your gear, and have had plenty of joy using both.
Before putting your ski gear in the machine, make sure all zips are done up and pull cords loosened. If your ski jacket has down, turn the item inside out before washing, and put this item in alone, without anything else. Generally, try to avoid washing any more than two items at a time, regardless of material, and if using a top-loading machine use a laundry bag.
Then, wash to the instructions on each bottle. This normally involves a cap or half cap of detergent per item, and I prefer placing this directly into the drum, rather than in the detergent draw. Do no add any other detergents or fabric softeners.
The instructions will recommend a thirty degree (celcisus), gentle cycle. I’ve had success with both Grangers and Nikwax down to 20°C, using either a delicate, cold sports, or hand wash cycle. This will vary considerably between machines, so go with what is closest to the instructions on the bottle and best matches on your machine.
Once done, pop on a rinse cycle to ensure that all residual detergent is washed off.
How do I Wash Non-Technical Gear?
Okay, so this is a bit of a mis-nomer; by non-technical gear, I mean anything that isn’t waterproof and/or GoreTex.
In general, this is a much simpler process. To start things off, I wash my performance mid-layers (as an example) after every week of skiing – they sit much closer to the skin, are privy to much more sweat, smells, and dirt, and therefore become more disgusting far sooner and easier than your ski jacket.
I rarely wash non-tech gear with Grangers or Nikwax; it is just unnecessary. Instead, I pop them in the machine on a cold or 30°C relatively gentle wash, and just use normal laundry detergent. Again, don’t use any fabric softener, and try and use non-bio, unperfumed detergent. The reason for this is so we don’t clog the breathable pores with these chemicals and perfumes, reducing the item’s performance.
Similar to your ski jacket, zip up the pockets and loosen all toggles. Place it in the machine with only a couple of other items, and add the detergent this time to the detergent drawer as normal.
How Do I Dry My Ski Gear?
This is another really good question. First of all, let it drip dry; when you take it out of the machine for the first time, it will shed quite a lot of water, so make sure you have a basket or bucket to hand just to empty it into out of the machine.
Then, hang up and drip dry. I find it’s best to put it on a hangar to properly open the jacket out and allow all the water to drain off. Again, it will continue to shed quite a bit of water when it does this, so make sure it’s hung up outside or with a bucket or something underneath to catch the drips.
Once it’s mostly dry, you can tumble dry for a few minutes. This needs to be done relatively cool, but still with a little bit of heat; this helps reactivate the DWR (Durable Water Repellent) coating on the face fabric. It’s not essential to do this, but can be a good idea especially if drying GoreTex or other waterproof gear. The exception is for jackets with natural down insulation - these have to be tumbled dried, often with a couple of (clean) tennis balls or down laundry balls. Why? The down inside clumps and matts when wet, reducing its effectiveness; to fully re-fluff the down and to ensure it is fully dried out, reducing the chance of mould, it is essential to tumble dry down jackets.
Occasionally, you will need to replace this DWR coating; this is a guide for another day, so stay tuned for that one when it comes along!
When the jacket is fully dry, it can be folded up and placed away until it is required again. And there we are, it is that easy to clean and dry your technical ski gear.
Final Thoughts
Please wash your ski gear! I think that is the takeaway from this piece. It is really easy to do, and with just a little bit of spend on tech wash, you can make sure your ski gear sparkles the next time you hit the slopes.
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