Care and Keeping of Baseball Caps?

Post Reply New Topic

Baseball caps have recently become a wardrobe staple, especially now that I have a job that requires me to be outside for hours every workday. I have quite a few that I rotate through so that they don't wear out too quickly. However, they are starting to age a bit. One of them is faded significantly. With the hot summer, I've been sweating a lot and I'm worried that my caps will start to get gross. I'm not in a financial situation where I can just go out and buy new hats whenever I want. I also have one that is discontinued that I would like to do something with other than just throw it away when it inevitably wears out. I would like to keep my hats in a useable state for a while. So how do I wash them? How do I prevent fading? How long can I expect them to last?

Anything you wear in intense sunshine regularly, is going to be subject to fading, so if you have a favorite item that's the last of its kind, if I were you I wouldn't wear that one so often.

You can absolutely wash baseball caps -- there should be wash instructions on the label. If not, go with a medium water temperature, not hot, but not cold --- you want it warm enough to degrunge (cold water won't wash them as thoroughly) but not so hot that they might shrink.

Use a laundry detergent that claims to "protect" color from fading, as washing can fade colors too with harsh detergents. I don't personally know for sure if these fade-protect ones actually work, but you might as well use them for whatever that claim is worth.

I air-dry mine by just pulling them into shape with my fingers then hanging them up with other air-drying clothing, but you can actually buy plastic "frames" meant to hold the shape of a laundered baseball cap while it air-dries. Try online places like Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Original-Ballcap-Buddy-Cap-Washer/dp/B0013FGVW2/ref=pd_lpo_200_bs_t_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=E5HFAMCBXD28740A9QAA

LOL...it's weird (but definitely fine with me!) that baseball caps have become so popular in the UK, even it's by no means their National Pastime.

Bird In Flight seems a very practical person in these matters. Her advice is, most likely, quite suitable.

There used to be a saying: "Everything that happens in America comes to Britain in ten years." These days I think it's much faster than that -- except for some TV shows.

Baseball caps are just so practical, they've become just useful hats to wear even without being a baseball fan, lol.

For me personally, there's the influence of having lived for a long time in the States, and my city especially was a sunny place where it felt like everyone and their grandma wore a baseball cap, lol, or at least some kind of sun-shading. So it felt very natural for me to wear them even in the UK. I would bet money some people who see me think I'm a freak for it though, ha.

Ironically, even though I'm a baseball fan, I've never taken to wearing baseball caps; I find them uncomfortable in the extreme.

Actually, in my trips to the UK, I've seen many people wearing baseball caps in informal settings like parks. I don't find this to be unusual at all.

I wonder why the cricket cap never took hold LOL

Cricket caps looks so near-identical to baseball caps to me that I don't know why they didn't catch on either.

One thing to be glad of: those cricket leg-guards haven't become a fashion item, lol.

I like cricket clothes, actually....those white sweaters and such!

Do people still dress like that when playing cricket?

I've seen this mode of dress in people playing cricket in the US.

One time, I was in Trinidad and Tobago, and they were playing a "test match." During a break in the action, a table with silver-looking items was placed in the middle of the "pitch." Turns out it was the cricketeer's lunch!

I think they do still wear all-white in cricket; a bit like the Wimbledon tennis tournament insists on all-white tennis wear.

It's odd, I only really watch Wimbledon for tennis, but if I happen to catch another tournament from somewhere else, it's quite jarring to see the players suddenly in bright colors and huge logos! (Banned at Wimbledon!)

Up until about the late 1970s, everybody wore white in tennis tournaments.

Even people like Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, and Martina Navratilova, who were the "renegades" of tennis.

I think Wimbledon is the only holdout regarding must-wear-white these days.

I've heard one or two players think it's annoying, and it does seem like they really bust out the other stuff once they're playing in Australia or the US, ha.

I actually find that it looks nice.