The Easy Way to Clean and Restore Vintage Hats

Collecting authentic vintage hats is a great hobby with a lot of enthusiasts that enjoy partaking. These caps take you through a journey in time, style, and culture, taking you right back to the era of the brand. Each cap carries a very unique story that tells you a bit about who wore it, and where it's been.

Different styles of caps from different eras can tell their own story as well. Some manufacturing processes don't exist anymore, and styles of hats has evolved and changed. Original hats are untouched and provide a glimpse into life from years ago.

Thrifting and hunting for vintage caps is a great past-time, and can yield amazing results if you dedicate some time to it, but often those hats are not in the greatest shape, or you wear them out and want to give them some life back. This is where cleaning them comes into play.

How do you clean and restore a vintage baseball hat?

Here's a list of things you might need:

Brushes
Detergent or Hat Cleaner
Bucket
Oxi Clean
Hairspray
Gloves

Cleaning vintage hats takes special attention

Unlike the hats you buy in store today, vintage hats are a lot harder to clean and restore. Don't just stick them in the dishwasher or laundry machine. You need to follow some steps and pay close attention to them so you don't ruin what you have.

Assess the material

What is your hat made out of? Does the hat have cleaning instructions inside the sweatband? Some hats such as Felt caps are a lot harder to clean, but the majority of cotton and polyester hats you can clean fairly easily if you have some time and motivation.

Dust and brush lightly

Start by gently removing any larger particulates from the hats. There might be dust or other debris sitting on the surface. You can use a light brush, I like to use ones that are made for sneakers and come in various stiffnesses.

A lint roller is also a great tool to use to remove the first layer of grime and dust.

Spot cleaning

If there are smaller stains or blemishes that are very noticeable you will want to treat those separately. Use mild detergent such as Dawn Dish Soap diluted with water, or if you have it, a specialized hat cleaner.

Dab a clean cloth or paper towel with your solution, blot the area, lifting up and down without rubbing side to side. Being too aggressive can damage the area and make your hat look inconsistent.

Sweatband treatment

Most hats have a sweatband and they will hold the most of the sweat from the previous owner. You want to treat the sweatband separately to make sure you get it as clean as possible.

Pull the sweatband out and use a damp cloth to gently wipe the surface. This will remove sweat and oils that have built up over time.

Cleaning the hat

Fill a bucket with a detergent or cleaner like OxiClean and hot water. Place the hat(s) you want to clean and let them soak for a few hours. Different hats react different so make sure you check them often and remove when you feel like they're ready.

Some hats will bleed their die from this process, so make sure to monitor, and if you see colour in the water remove immediately.

Modern hats have plastic inside their visors, but some vintage caps were made with cardboard visor inserts up until the early 1980's, and soaking them for too long will make them floppy. Make sure you monitor this as well.

Drying

Make sure you dry the hat as well as you can. You can either use a hair dryer or leave it out in the shade to dry off. Don't leave your hat in direct sunlight as it will change the colour of the fabrics.

If you are worried about the shape of the hat you can also ball up a small towel and place it inside to maintain it's shape while it dries. If you have a hat cage you can also use that for certain types of hats.

You can also spray the hat with some hairspray while it's drying to try to keep the form of the hat staying the same.

Looking to avoid this?

Cleaning hats is a lot of work. We offer authentic vintage patches sewn onto new hats so you can avoid having to restore a hat that someone else has worn for years.

Celebrate history with a patch that has stood the test of time, and sewn onto a hat you actually want to wear.

It's Vintage without the Sweat.