Sanitizing used hats?

[Spellflower]

I've heard of guys putting hats in the freezer, but I dont' worry too much about it. Your horror story proves the possibility, but I don't consider it a likelihood.

 

[RockBottom]

I, too, am a hygiene fanatic, and here's what I've successfully done with suspect clothing:

Put the hat inside a plastic garbage can liner bag, get as much of the air out as you can without crushing the hat, seal it up tight, and leave it be for a week.

Living things are aerobic--they need air--and this should kill any nasty organisms making a home on the hat.

There are cleaning products on the market made just for hats, but I would shy away from them as they can stain felt and remain embedded in it, which creates a new set of problems.

You can have a professional clean and block a hat--definitely don't let a "corner cleaner" do it--but I don't know whether or not even pros would use anything that truly "sanitizes" it in terms of killing mites, ringworms, and the like.

I'm a bit skeptical of that. First of all, bacteria can go into suspended animation and live anaerobically for a long time. Second, even mites need so little air that I don't think you could smother them. Might work on a mouse though.

 

[Rick Blaine]

NAPTHA !!!

WHITE GAS/COLMAN FUEL/DENATURED ALCOHOL ... nothing living could survive that for long and as an added plus, many vintage items will come out a shade or two lighter in color. Use care however 'cause the alcohol tends to break down the stiffner and render hats somewhat softer... my .02

 

[Mike in Seattle]

Hats in a plastic bag - it could take months if not years for a couple tiny little bugs to use up all of the oxygen in a bag, and almost any plastic bag is not going to have a completely air-tight seal. So a hat in a trashbag for a week? It's going to do absolutely no good.

A few weeks in a tightly-taped bag that's had as much air as possible squeezed out before sealing with mothballs might be effective on most things, but as someone else mentioned - I don't know that that would completely disinfect the hat.

I'd go with the freezer method - that's what others have reported that museums and so forth use with incoming clothing. Or perhaps a combination of the two - freezing with or followed by a mothball treatment. I'd probably go with the later so if any eggs hatch, it does them in.

And cleaning by a professional would probably be the best advice.

 

[Spellflower]

FYI on the mothballs, I just listened to a podcast of NPR's "Science Friday" on household toxins, and the scientists said mothballs are far and away the most toxic things people bring into their homes. So yeah, they might kill the moths, but so would an atom bomb- the question is, at what cost?

 

[RBH]

WHITE GAS/COLMAN FUEL/DENATURED ALCOHOL ... nothing living could survive that for long and as an added plus, many vintage items will come out a shade or two lighter in color. Use care however 'cause the alcohol tends to break down the stiffner and render hats somewhat softer... my .02

I'm with you Rick. I've had great luck with this method.

 

[tonyb]

I did a search but couldn't find anything about this. I know from browsing the forum that at least a few of you buy or have bought used hats.

My question is, do you do anything to sanitize them before wearing them? Lest you think I'm being overly squeamish, I have to relate a story from my childhood that has stuck with me all these years.

c1959, I was in a thrift store with Mom. Browsing some of the stuff, I came across an old WWII Civil Defense helmet. How cool! So naturally I tried it on and strutted up to show Mom. No amount of whining and begging would convince her to buy it, so back it went.

To our horrors, we later discovered it was infested with ring-worm. The Health Dept retrieved and tested the helmet and confirmed it was the source.

To this day, I'm very leery of trying on used hats.

So I said all that to ask this, is there a proper way to sanitize a used hat? What methods or products are used, or do you take it to a pro? Are most corner cleaners able to clean/sanitize hats?

Yup, it's safe to say that at least a few of us buy used hats.
You aren't the first to express a concern about what might be lurking in an old lid. For whatever it's worth, I have no recollection of anyone here telling of picking up any sort of infestation from a used hat. That doesn't mean it didn't happen, and yeah, that's only anecdotal, and your own experience is to the contrary, but our combined collections of vintage (and merely "used") hats must number into the thousands, or even the tens of thousands or more. If it were something that happened with any frequency to speak of, well, we would have spoken of it.
As to cleaning ... DO NOT TRUST YOUR HAT TO THE DRY CLEANER DOWN AT THE CORNER, unless there happens to be a dry cleaner on that corner who also happens to be an experienced hatter with the proper skills and equipment. If that person exists anywhere near Seattle, well, unless he went into operation quite recently (doubtful, that) I'll eat a used hat.
Blaine has it right, Briny. Of all the solvents commonly used by us amateurs to clean old hats, I've had the best success with this stuff called VM&P (varnish makers' and painters') naphtha. Search this forum or more info on using it. Watch out, though ... it can be quite satisfying to bring a dirty, misshapen vintage lid back to life. Next thing you know, you'll have dozens and dozens of 'em, and still not have enough.

 

[tonyb]

Oh, I almost forgot ...
Conley Hat Manufacturing up in Madrona (in the 1100 block of 34th Avenue, just south of East Union Street) is a proper hat shop, run by a person, Alex Conley, who indeed does have the experience to do a good job of it. And he's a pleasant guy to deal with, to boot.

 

[tandmark]

Hi,

Plastic bag? Nope. What Rockbottom said.

Naphtha? If you've got a well-ventilated indoor area, they say it works.

Alcohol? I've used it for stained felt, dabbing a few drops on with wet fingers. Didn't want to use much, as the black dye wasn't alcohol-fast, and I was worried about dissolving all the stiffener in the felt. The technique didn't do a perfect job on the stains. No idea what it'd do to pests. Many on the Lounge have had success with it.

The freezer trick will kill moth eggs/larvae. Can't say if it'd kill mites. Probably, though.

Mites need blood meals. Not wearing the hat for a couple of weeks ought to starve them into extinction. And most used hats you find haven't been worn for a while.

Ringworm (so-called) is the common term for a fungus that forms ring-shaped marks on the skin. I don't have a clue, offhand, what would kill the spores if they were in a hat's felt or sweatband. There are fungicidal soaps for use on clothing, but you'd be braver than I if you soaked a hat in the suds. Ringworm is not a rare condition, but *knock on wood* I've never caught ringworm from a used hat.

Cheers,
Mark

 

[riccardo]

Fire.

I've great success with fire.
Let the hat on the fire, it burn every kind of sospected insect.lol lol lol
Riccardo.

 

[scotrace]

If this is a genuine concern, then by all means you should have any hats that are not new professionally cleaned in a way that will sanitize them.
My own preference is Optimo Hats in Chicago, IL. Graham Thompson there, one of the top hatters in the United States, soaks the hat in a naptha bath that does indeed kill all. The hat is then returned to you perfectly shaped. Well worth the $30. You can do this at home, but as others have mentioned, the fumes are quite nasty, and then you must dispose of the goop properly. You also run the considerable risk of ruining the hat as some were colored with various chalks that will wash out, leaving a splotchy mess. The pros know how to deal with anything that crops up.

As to 'how likely is it?' that you might pick up something from a used item placed on your body? I don't remember who it was here, but one of our members once told the cautionary tale of wearing a vintage jacket without first having it cleaned, and developing nasty, open fungal sores on his neck in short order.

All of us who buy and wear vintage clothing or hats are occasionally guilty of neglecting this step, but best practice is to assume your vintage hat has beasties and send them packing first.

As another member famously said: "WE DON'T WANT THE FUNK!"

 

[Razzman]

Lots of good advice in this thread. Scotrace is right on, and Optimo is one of the best. A clean a block is between $30-40, plus shipping each way, so it can be a bit expensive. I've only sent what I consider my best hats. Soaking in Naptha also works, I've tried it with a couple of "beaters". I wussed out when it came to my "better" hats. I guess I've tried all the methods mentioned here. I've also swabed the sweatband with alcohol and then used conditioner on the leather. I guess all the methods mentioned in this thread have some benefit.

 

[jkingrph]

In a well sealed bag, moth balls or crystals would kill most insects, mites ect.

As far as bacteria, I do not know, but think they generally would not be a problem.

The ringworm is caused by a fungus. Fungal spores can live for years, then when they get the correct growth media ( your skin) take off and grow.

 

[Naphtali]

Sanitizing, for me, is a three-stage process.

1. Into double-layered plastic bags, or single biohazard bag if available, seal hat and "low odor" mothballs. Let stand for two weeks.

2. Consecutive hours, hose out the entire interior with Lysol® or generic equivalent.

3. Let air outside as needed.

 

[NonEntity]

Bag & Seal Does Work For Lice

Several of you say this will not work. The sources for my information are authoritative and include MayoClinic.com and WebMD, and I have second- and first-hand experience, as well.


First, let's clarify the TYPE of pests to which we are referring. There are many that live on and in humans, and there is no one treatment that works for all. By far the most common pests transferred by clothing--including hats--are head and body lice.

My elementary-school-age son got head lice. This problem occasionally pops up in schools, and many of the kids get it.

In fact, a few years before that, the kids of some good friends of mine got head lice at another school, but it was a hoity-toity school where neither parents nor the administration wanted to address the problem because such pests have been stigmatized as low class, though, in fact, head lice are equal-opportunity infestors and are as prevalent among the upper as lower classes.

Since no one was working together to deal with the problem en masse, the pests persisted. My friends got an over-the-counter pediculicide for their boys' hair and thought they'd solved the problem. But the lice came back. Again, pediculicide to the rescue. Lice came back again, this time getting not only in their kid's hair, but also their parent's--my friend's. They tried the pediculicide, but to no avail. The little critters had developed a resistance to the poison.

So they went to a doc, who said he'd had a lot of patients recently with the same problem, and gave them a Rx for some real strong stuff. It seemed to work, but the lice reappeared. You see, everyone else was going through the same thing, though mum was the word, and they had inadvertently created a super-race of pests resistant to even the strongest prescription pediculicide. Some people had adverse reactions to the medicine, a few severe.

No one was addressing the root cause of the problem: Separating the lice and their offspring which hatch in a week from the source of their food--human blood--and everyone doing it at approximately the same time. Lice occasionally directly transfer from one kid to another in rough and tumble play, and, much more often, indirectly via shared clothing and bedding.

The problem persisted for months until, finally, parents and the school overcame the embarrassment and began to communicate and attack it in a coordinated fashion. By that point, all kids and parents had to take rather drastic measures: shaving their heads bald, sealing up all clothes and towels, all bedding including the mattress, all upholstered furniture, all rugs--anything fabric where the tiny eggs could be--and even clearing out of their homes entirely for over a week if they had wall-to-wall carpet. If the lice do not have people to feed on, they die in a couple days, and in another week or so, the eggs hatch, and those little guys quickly die, as well.

So when I saw my boy scratching his head a lot, and inspected and found lice, I snapped to attention, immediately conducting an extensive online and library search, and called an emergency meeting of all parents. It's good that I was already involved in the PTA, because the school itself would do nothing to help beyond letting us use the gym to meet and issuing copies of its policy that students would not be allowed to return to school until they were pest-free.

Even the OTC pediculicides are dangerous, and, of course, neither they nor the Rx medicines necessarily work. Parents got fine-tooth combs, went outdoors, and combed out lice and eggs that way, shampooed, combed again, repeat, repeat. In the meantime, we sealed up clothes AND HATS and bedding in air-tight plastic bags. I stand corrected from my statement above: Sealing the bags has nothing to do with oxygen or lack thereof, it just keeps the critters from getting out and onto someone. Bottom line: In two weeks from that meeting, the lice problem was completely gone.

Ringworm, the pest Brinybay contracted from the old helmet as a kid, is another matter I do not know how to prevent. But I do know that it is a relatively rare problem in the developed world, while head and body lice account for the overwhelming majority of pests transferred via clothing. To be on the safe side, seal up your hat for ten days; that will be the maximum amount of time for lice and eggs they may have just laid to hatch and starve to death.

Bacteria was mentioned above, but please be reminded that only a miniscule portion of those guys present a problem, 99.9% of which can be eliminated with a light spray of Lysol and/or leaving the hat in bright sun.

Again, I would leave the use of naphtha to a hat pro, as that is an extremely strong chemical that could do more harm than good to both a hat and its owner in the hands of a non-pro. Unless the hat is otherwise visibly dirty and/or needs reblocking for shape, I would simply bag and seal a hat to kill any lice.

Now, to make you really paranoid, did you know that merely trying on a brand new hat is a pest risk? Yes, head lice can live without human blood for several days, and their eggs hatching can add another week to that. So, if a person with head lice tries on a hat, and then you try it on, you could conceivably get the lice up to ten days after the infested person tried it on.

Advantage: bald guys.

 

[KY Gentleman]

Wow, my head itches....anyone else?

 

[Brinybay]

Wow, my head itches....anyone else?

hehehe... Funny you said that. I was thinking of this thread and my childhood horror story while at work and was scratching more than usual.

 

[tandmark]

Howdy,

Ringworm, the pest Brinybay contracted from the old helmet as a kid, is another matter I do not know how to prevent. But I do know that it is a relatively rare problem in the developed world.

That's what I'd have said, too. Until I read the following from Wikipedia:

Ringworm, also known as "Tinea", (...) is not caused by a worm but by parasitic fungi (Dermatophytosis). It can exist anywhere on the body. (...) (U)p to 20 percent of the population has one of these infections at any given moment.

Now, is that 20% of all humans in the world, or 20% of the population in the developed nations (Western Europe, Canada/USA, Australia/New Zealand, and Japan)? That's hard to say without excavating for better data. But I'm willing to believe that ringworm is not as rare as I'd have thought.

Cheers (for all of you who aren't scratching themselves right now, at any rate),
Mark

 

[RockBottom]

Now, is that 20% of all humans in the world, or 20% of the population in the developed nations (Western Europe, Canada/USA, Australia/New Zealand, and Japan)? That's hard to say without excavating for better data. But I'm willing to believe that ringworm is not as rare as I'd have thought.

Cheers (for all of you who aren't scratching themselves right now, at any rate),
Mark

I think the most common form is athlete's foot.

 

[Brinybay]

I think the most common form is athlete's foot.

And also jock itch, per Medicine.net: http://www.medicinenet.com/ringworm/article.htm

They actually list 8 different types, depending on the area of the body it's contracted. Damn, now I'm itching all over! I'm sorry I started this thread!