Live plants need watering, furtilizing and dusting to maintain their beauty but our artificial florals are much simpler to care for. First tip – Don’t buy those aerosol cans of compressed air. They are expensive and don’t last long. When time to dust a simple light vaccuming will clear the dust away. Use a panty hose over the end of the hose to disfuse the strength of the air flow. Or, if you feel your vaccum is to strong use a hair dryer set on the coolest setting to avoid the heat melting the glue holding the product together.
If extra cleaning is necessary try a cool water wash. Fill one side of your sink with cool water. It must be cool or at the least tepid. Hot water will melt the glue used to hold the leaf together. Add about a teaspoon of lemon dish detergent, which contains a small amount of bleach and is safe for all silk products and the lemon will help dissolve the grease and heavy dust.
Swish the silk product in the water. If the dirt is heavy, you may need to wipe it some while it is under water. You can damage the underside of the leaves with a heavy hand though so be careful. Be careful not to scrub, this can fray the edges of the material and the plant will look old and tattered.
Once cleaned, place the product on a towel or paper towel and blot it dry. If you rub it you’ll end up with the same effect as if you’d scrubbed it in the water so be gentle. Now place it back in it’s original container and let it finish air drying.
We recommend that if you’re cleaning a floral arrangement, remove and clean one stem at a time and replace it before cleaning the next. That will eliminate the need to have the arrangement re-designed.