Fursuits are a luxury item, they must be cared for and handled delicately!
When you receive your item, it'll look scruffy! It's been packed in a box for how long.
I highly recommend to buy our fursuit sprays to disinfect, clean and make your fursuit smell super good for weeks on end!
Please make sure you brush your fursuit part after receiving it, use a slicker brush or a natural bristle brush and brush the fur with the grain, but do not hold the slicker brush by the handle. Turn it around so the metal prongs are not angled toward you and brush. I will clarify this with each fursuit.
Fursuits do not need to be brushed vigorously daily. Only brush after suiting or if the part has been tossed around alot and the fur looks scruffy. Be very careful around the eyes on a fursuit head, claws on paws along with the pads, zippers and other delicate accessories. Use your hand to slick back the fur when you want to clean up the fur a bit. Yes, shedding will happen too. You can always take the parts outside and shake to remove excess floaties or anything inside the head / part.
I personally use gain laundry detergent with oxyclean! No fabric softener!
Handpaw / Feetpaws instructions below.
When you suit for a long time and sweat in the piece, you will need to wash it. Fullsuits can be machine washed on cold 100%!
Bathtub method - For paws, arms, bodysuits and tails, fill up a bathtub of cold water and use a teaspoon of normal laundry detergent in the tub and swish it around. Throw paws in, tails, turn armsleeves inside out if they are alone and turn bodysuits inside out as well. Take out the stuffing from the body and get each part soaked in the tub. Gently rub each piece with your fingers and pay attention to gross areas like under the armpits and the crotch area when washing. Let the parts soak in the tub for 30 mins to an hour. You will see the water change into a greyish cloudy color, that's the sweat and grossness coming out. For items that cannot be turned inside out just be careful and don't scruff the fur in the opposite direction. Scrub pawpads with your fingers to clean them. After your set time empty the tub and squeeze out all the water from each part, this can be quite difficult so you can let them sit on their own in the tub for awhile as they drain. Once they're squeezed enough refill the tub with cold clean water and rinse the items by swishing them around. Do not pick up any of the wet items as they will stretch and be deformed, particularly important for bodysuits. Repeat the rinse and drain cycle 3-5 times until no soap is left. You may put paws, tails, armsleeves in a pillowcase and tie it shut, then throw the parts into the washer on the spin cycle only to drain them. You may do the same with the bodysuit if your washer can handle it. NEVER USE HEAT OR HOT THINGS ON YOUR SUIT. let the items air dry , not in direct sunlight and brush them gently every hour as they dry. For fursuit heads , do the same prep with the water and soap but only use a damp rag to wash the head. Go in the direction of the fur and gently wipe down the head, making sure to wipe out the inside too. Do not soak the foam. You may dip the heads neck into the soapy water to clean that area but do not let the foam part of the head touch the water.
WHITE FUR MAY DISCOLOR IN DIRECT SUNLIGHT. It'll turn yellow over time from the UV exposure.
Machine washing your head is POSSIBLE. My heads are made to be very durable and lightweight and customers have machine washed them with no damage. I personally don't recommend it as I'm very careful with my products. Also my feetpaws feature zippers to remove the stuffing in the ankles so these could possibly be machine washed too, again I do not recommend it. I've dried my suit in the dryer on AIR FLUFF or NO HEAT and it worked fine, please be careful when you do stuff like this. Machines can fail.
Paws get sweaty indefinitely and need to be washed frequently or disinfected with proper fursuit sprays. A bissel little green machine will work wonders on the paws but they are 100% able to be machine washed. The stuffing may shift a small bit if the paws are stuffed above the top of the hand, so just shake and readjust the polyfill through the paw. There is no foam inside the paws.
Feet are also another item that indefinitely gets sweaty, but they have casted foam toes. Fursuit feet CAN be machine washed if the polyfill is removed from the ankles through the zippers provided , but it isn't recommend to machine wash this. Instead use the bissel little green or the tub method with a rag and wash the whole top area of the leg to ankle area and inside the shoe. Note this will take longer to dry but do not put it in direct sunlight, use a fan or cool air. If the ankles of your feet seemed squished down or not as puffy, open the zipper and either refluff or restuff the polyfill inside! Foam may be used instead as one piece to make a better ankle support.
For most to all tails by me they can be machine washed. There is always a zipper hidden on the tail somewhere to remove polyfill.