Prepping for sweater weather
Well, it’s sweater weather. Time to shave.
This time every year, around the day Felipe the elderly little schnauzer won’t go out for his morning walk unless he’s wearing his sweater, I start to think about my own cold-weather wardrobe.
Namely, the heap of wool that teeters on the top shelf of my closet. I’ve ignored it since last March and now it needs my attention. The light blue V-neck made of affordable cashmere? It’s been attacked. Not by moths, although who would blame them. While it slept with its sweater buddies during the summer, my favorite blue one grew rough and bumpy.
They’re called pills, the little balls that crop up on sweaters, appearing first at rub areas under the arms and on the sleeves. The website product reviews warn us about this. That $50 cashmere sweater (I’m looking at you, Quince.com) looks great online and when you open the box, but wear it for the third time and a few pills appear. Two more wears and the pills are everywhere.
Time for a shave. For about half the price of a sweater, I bought an Amazon sweater shaver, a mostly plastic, rechargeable tool with a blade that spins behind a metal plate that looks like a cheese grater.
I spread the sweater across the ironing board and fired up the shaver. I approached this in the same way I would any task involving a razor. The first sweep across the left sleeve made no difference; these pills are tenacious. Maybe I wasn’t applying enough pressure.
Pushed a bit harder and, yes, I felt something pulling. The sleeve looked a bit smoother. This was going to be satisfying (Oddly, I was reminded of squashing spotted lantern flies. Or popping bubble wrap.)
And so away I went, sweeping the shaver back and forth across the sleeves, and then across the back of the sweater and then, finally the front. This tool was going to refresh and spruce up my sweater weather wardrobe.
Next up, my excessive selection of black turtlenecks. How I acquired eight of them I couldn’t tell you, but it’s probably related to my wrinkly neck but also my tendency to buy brown rice every time I shop because I can’t remember if I have any.
I shaved the first black turtleneck and then the next. Somewhere around sweater number three, I noticed it wasn’t removing the pills. Maybe the blade was getting dull. I pushed harder.
And shaved a hole into the front of the sweater. It was as if the shaver inhaled the fabric and then bit it.
I opened the plastic receptacle and pulled out the wad of fuzz the shaver had collected. It looked like the fuzz I clean from the dryer lint trap. If the dryer can pull all that excess wool from a sweater, why can’t they invent a dryer that removes pills from cashmere? Inventors: get on that, would you? Alternatively, I could remove the cedar from my closet and let the moths in, but only if they’ll eat the pills and leave the rest.
I suppose I could send away for a new shaver blade, but that would only last another few sweaters. There’s a special comb that’s supposed to work better than a power shaver; maybe I’ll get one of those and use my elbow grease.
In the meantime, I noticed that the pills aren’t so noticeable on black sweaters. For now, I’ll just wear those.
The one has a hole, but I still have seven more.