How to Clean a Waxed Canvas Jacket: Barbour, Flint & Tinder, and more

If you’re a stylish dude who loves the great outdoors — or just likes looking as though he loves the great outdoors — waxed canvas jackets are a great alternative to modern technical fabrics. They’re durable, rugged, and made with natural materials, so it’s easy to maintain at home if you know what you’re doing.

Don’t fret if you don’t; we’re going to break down everything you need to know to keep your beloved waxed canvas jacket clean and well-maintained.

When Should You Wash Waxed Canvas?

Although waxed cotton is hardwearing and durable, as with any fabric, it requires cleaning, care, and maintenance. How often you clean your waxed jacket depends on usage, but we’d recommend it at least once per year, if not every season, for the hardwearing guys and gals out there.

Waxed jackets can pick up smells, dirt, and grime from regular wear, and it’s not like most clothes that you can just toss in the washing machine and forget about. If you improperly wash waxed canvas items, they’ll lose their water resistance. When improperly stored, they can get mildewy or moldy, an especially difficult situation as it permeates liners and fabrics.

Luckily, the cleaning and deodorizing processes are straightforward.

What You Need to Clean Your Waxed Cotton Jacket

• Dry towel
• Damp cloth or sponge
• Soft bristle brush
• Cold water
• Waxed canvas cleaner (optional)

For stubborn stains, try Otter Wax’s Canvas Spot Cleaner, specifically formulated for cleaning waxed and oiled fabrics without damaging that weather-resistant coating. It’s essentially a very mild soap. You can also use small amounts of castile soap to clean the waxed canvas and the liner.

How to Clean Your Waxed Jacket

Waxed cotton jackets, like Barbour wax jackets, are expensive to make sure they last as long as possible.

Here’s your step-by-step guide:

• Lay the jacket on a flat, protected surface and put a towel underneath.
• Use the soft brush to brush off the dirt, dust, and stains from the surface. Give the jacket a good shake to remove any lingering dust.
• Next, gently scrub the surface of the jacket with a damp cloth or wet sponge.
  (You can usually just spot clean the coat. If it’s extremely dirty, give it a good rinse)
• Lastly, hang your jacket in a well-ventilated room and allow it to air dry before storing it in your wardrobe.

How to Remove Odors From Waxed Canvas

You can follow the simple steps to remove stubborn orders from waxed canvas:

• Air out the jacket in a well-ventilated area for a few hours, or hang it in a room with an open window.
• Brush off any debris, dirt, or muck from the jacket.
• Give it a good wash with a waxed canvas deodorizer like Otter Wax’s Canvas Deodorizer. Otter Wax added live enzyme cultures that eat odor-causing bacteria.
• Alternatively, people reported good results with a 3:1 water-vinegar solution. Some people recommend using baking soda as well. We’ve not tested these methods.
• Dry the jacket in the sun. Hang the jacket in a sunny spot to dry for a few hours, the sun’s ultraviolet rays can help to neutralize odors. Note: excessive and repeated exposure to UV will also cause the wax to lose effectiveness.
• If the above methods do not work, you can take the jacket to a professional cleaner who has experience with removing odors from waxed canvas.

This process will have your wax jacket smelling fresh and revived again. You can now hang it in your wardrobe till you are ready to wear it.

Waxed Jackets DOs and DON’Ts

If you own a waxed canvas jacket, these ‘Do’s and ‘Don’t’s are key to making sure you’re jacket will last for ages.

Do:

• Brush off dirt, dust, and mud.
• Use cold water when cleaning your waxed jacket, for tough stains, use a waxed canvas cleaner.
• Wipe all the marks with a damp cloth and water.
• Allow your coat to air-dry in a well-ventilated area
• Re-wax your jacket once every year to maintain its waterproof nature. You can do DIY by using a specialized wax dressing or sending it down to a professional wax jacket cleaner.

Don’t:

• Use warm or hot water on your waxed cotton jacket. This can strip your jacket of its waterproofing wax and oil. When this happens, you can’t re-wax again.
• Wash your jacket in a washing machine to avoid damaging the wax coating.
• Use detergents, bleach, solvents, or other chemicals on your coat.
• Dry clean your jacket.
• Repair yourself. Contact customer service or any garment menders and have them fix it.

Rewaxing Your Waxed Jacket

After cleaning your jacket, you may notice some areas looking lighter in color than others or places where the wax is worn from continued usage. (It typically starts wearing away at the elbows.) This may affect the water resistance and weatherproofness of your jacket.

This can be fixed by re-waxing your jacket to restore its water-resistant qualities. Once your coat is completely dried from the initial cleaning process, you can re-wax it yourself with a bit of patience, some wax, and a hot air gun or blow dryer.

What you’ll need:

• Wax: Otter Wax’s Fabric Dressing or Filson’s Oil Finish Wax
• Flat surface to lay your wax jacket
• Hair dryer or a heat gun if you have one,
• A sponge or an old cloth
• Soft bristle brush

The Process:

• Start out by melting your wax, since your jacket is already cleaned. You can do this with your heat gun directly or place the tin of wax in a pot of hot water and then on a stove to melt it.
• Use the clean cloth to apply the wax evenly over your jacket in a circular motion. Make sure to spread evenly across the entire coat and pay more attention to those areas that look worn out.
• Focus on one area of the jacket at a time, and give it some time to absorb the wax. You don’t need to re-wax the pocket lining, collar, or jacket lining.
• Once the wax is evened out on the entire garment, clean off the excess wax and heat the jacket again with your hairdryer. This will help it to absorb all the wax into the material.
• Hang your jacket in a cool, dry place and dry overnight. This should take 24-48 hours for the best result. Make sure it’s not touching any other clothes. The wax can transfer to other fabrics.
• Store your jacket in a cool, dry place.

Conclusion

The importance of cleaning your waxed jacket and keeping it in top shape can not be overemphasized. Re-waxing yearly is one way to expand the lifespan of your jacket and ensure continued waterproofing. It will also help you eliminate any unpleasant smell you notice on your waxed cotton jacket and leave it smelling fresh again.

If you can’t find the time to do it yourself, send it out to a professional. For Barbour’s jackets, you can contact Barbour Repairs and Reproofing to learn about the services offered and which suits your needs. That said, any tailor or garment repair service should be able to take care of you.