I bought the hat brush and sponges for my Silver Belly, and I need to go back to buy the black brush and sponges for the black beauty. I brushed the Silver Belly last night and couldn't believe how much dust came off! Do they treat hats with some powder before leaving the factory? Or do felt hats just pick up a lot of dust?Buy some hat brushes if you don't already have some...one for the black hats and one for lighter colored hats. Brush you hats often....also a few hat sponges. You can clean a hat up with use of both of these. The sponge helps "absorb" dirt and some staining. You can just wash the sponge out with some soap and water when it gets dirty, squeeze it out and rinse it a few times to get all the soap out of it, let it dry when it looks clean and use it again.
If the hat bug has bitten you, at some point in time you may have 40 or 50 hats, some true vintage hats that you scoured the listings on eBay or Etsy or the Goodwill sites, and some from a custom hatter....and you will look back at how things were so easy and simple like there are now...hahaha! You really know how bad it gets when you start buying clothing items to simply match a hat you own...(or plan to buy). A few years later you can realize you are "hat-a-zoid" and you have so many hats and other things connected to your attire, you need to move into a larger home, something over 5,000 square foot just for the "necessary" storage room, closets, etc.....when it gets past that point, well, haha, you'll admit that you can never have enough hats.....and even if you don't drink...a belt of Scotch will come in handy.
After years of brushing, how much of the fur is removed? Or does the fur on quality hats stay pretty well bound?