Caring for your mascot costume
Introduction – So, you have a mascot costume. You’ve worn it a few times… It’s starting to get a bit smelly. What do you do? Well, just like your regular clothes need to be washed after wearing them, so too does your mascot costume. Though, mascot costumes are not considered clothing. They should be cleaned in the same ways.
If you purchased your mascot costume from us, then the below guide is for you. If you did not get it from us, I’m afraid we can’t help as we cannot be sure of the construction methods or materials – sorry! We can supply a Mascot Care PDF to existing clients which will outline the cleaning process and important points. I’ll list a few of these below, also.
General Usage
If you’ve ever worn a mascot costume yourself, or helped someone get in/out of one, then you’ll know that by nature, they can be quite warm to wear. In the same way as you wearing a winter coat if it wasn’t cold out, you would start to sweat. The same is true with most mascot costumes (though there are ways to manage the heat which we offer such as fans and coolstraps – get in touch if you want to know more about these!).
The easiest way to keep the mascot itself fresh and sanitary is to ensure it is stored properly after use. Once the mascot has been worn for a period of time, the wearer will inevitably have sweat inside it. The mascot body should be hung up to air out before bieng put back into it’s storage bag/box. This will help deal with any odours bieng trapped in the bag.
The inside of the head and shoes should be wiped with an antibacterial wipe and, again, left out to air dry before bieng stored away. Little habits like ensuring these two things are done after each use will help massively in the general day-to-day usage of a mascot costume.
Cleaning
So, you’ve been using your mascot for a few weeks/months. You’ve been taking care of it and giving it the time it needs to dry off in between uses. But it’s beginning to get quite dirty and could do with a clean. Scary! How do I wash it without ruining it??
The majority of our mascot costumes are made to be fully machine washable on a cold wash. the golden rule with washing a mascot costume is to avoid any heat at all in the cleaning process. Most elements of our mascot costumes can be put into a washing machine and washed on a cold wash. It can then be left to hang dry in a warm room until completely dry. We understand that this process can be a little scary at first, so if you are wanting to do this yourself, please do get in touch with us. We’ll be happy to help!
Some mascots, depending on the size, won’t fit into a washing machine and will need hand washing – this can be a much longer process but can also be done yourself, by hand. Again, all of the information about how to do this is contained in our Mascot Care PDF – get in touch if you would like to see this.
Our Refurbishment Service
If you feel like cleaning yourself is too scary/risky, you know there will be some repairs needed, or you simply just don’t have time to do it. We do offer a full Refurbishment Service. The base level service consists of a General Clean and Minor Repairs (loose stitching, minor damage etc). Our refurbishment service is usually in high demand, if you think you will be wanting to use our service in the near future, please do get in touch as soon as you can so that we can advise the next available slot.
We do try our best to get the mascot looking ‘like-new’. However, this all depends completely on the extent of the damage/dirt/stains on the mascot costume. We’re no miracle workers but we will always put forward a solution if something is not quite right. It may be that the t-shirt for your mascot has a big stain on the back which won’t come out – we would recommend a new t-shirt, give you a quote and a timeline for completion. Replacement parts can increase the time of the refurbishment depending on the current production schedule. So if you think any elements will need replacing, please do let us know beforehand so that we can block out some time in the schedule for you!
We can organise a box to be sent to you for packaging the mascot us, the collection of the mascot from you and the delivery back to you. All you need to do is get in touch, book in and then wait for us to send it back – easy, right?
If you think this service is something you’d like to use, please do feel free to get in touch with us and we’ll give you all the information and pricing that you need. Click the button down below to send us over an email saying you’re interested!
