In order to clean your Wayuu bag appropriately, the first thing you should know is the type of fabric it is made with.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!I must say that I have seen some sellers claim their Wayuu bags were made of natural fibers and cotton. This is a common misconception and unlike popular belief, no Wayuu bag is made of natural fibers or cotton. After a little bit of investigation, I found out that all original Wayuu bags produced in the region of La Guajira are made from threads of 2 or 3 big thread companies.
The threads sold to make Wayuu bags are acrylic, a synthetic fiber synthetic. Although, it doesn’t sound sexy or exotic, it’s a much better option than natural fiber.
Learn how to tell the difference between 2T and 1T Wayuu bags
Synthetic fiber is more water repellent and holds color better than natural fibers. Not to mention, it has great durability. If Wayuu bags were made of cotton, they would lose their shape quicker and the color would fade after very quickly.
How to care for your Wayuu bag
So the first thing that I always suggest is to spot clean. Or if it needs a general wash to hand wash it.
I’ve previously tried to machine wash a Wayuu bags and sometimes the tassels or the drawstrings would get damaged. Learning from my mistakes, I just rather not risk it as it’s such a carefully crafted handmade item and just wash it by hand.
If you have a little bit of dirt on the bag it’s very easy to wash off as the bag is acrylic and it doesn’t soak up the stain as much as a natural fiber like cotton or wool would. Take the spot where you have a little bit of dirt and dampen it with water. You don’t have to put a lot of soap. A little bit goes a long way.
I personally like to wear gloves to get a better scrub and work in a nice lather. You don’t have to scrub too much so as to not damage the fabric and again, as this is acrylic the stain should wash off quite quickly easily.
Rinse off the soap and hang your bag to dry. In Bogota this usually takes one to two days.
Grooming a Wayuu bag
Once the bag is dry you might want to groom it a little bit, so here I have a pair of scissors and my dog’s brush but you can grab any regular comb which would work just as well.
What I do in terms of grooming happens more in the tassel area. I’ll brush them to straighten out the threads and I’ll check that all the strings are in place.
If there is a string that is poking out or that needs trimming DO NOT trim in a straight line. Instead, place the entire tassel in your fist and let the ends come out between your thumb and index. Squeeze tight and trim away the excess threads.
If you would like to make your tassel shorter what you would do is estimate more or less how short you would like it and place your thumb and index an inch lower than how short you would really want it. Trimming the tassels of a Wayuu bag is like a haircut: the threads lift and fluff up making the tassel look shorter. I like to remove one centimeter at a time so as to not overdo it because unfortunately, unlike hair, tassels don’t grow back!