U2-01 Unshrinking Solution for Cashmere, Wool and Wool Blend Clothing

The stuff smells horrible--like perm solution (which makes sense). Make sure to let the item dry in a well-ventilated area or close it in a room otherwise your whole house will stink. It says 3-4 items can be unshrunk with one bottle, but they'd have to be scarves or smaller/thinner items. I unshrunk an Aran Isle sweater that was fairly chunky and it sucked up all the water. The thing you have to know is that the garment will continue to smell horrid until completely dry. Don't let that freak you out. When fully dry it really will smell like linen. There is some kind of wizardry involved. I started out skeptical but ended up a fan. My sweater was able to stretch back to close to normal size (80% of original) and could have been stretched more if I was willing to pull on it more. Texture was restored too. Just know that you have to put some work into it and the process of stretching/drying took about 4 days due to the thickness of my sweater.

Ok folks, straight up review: I washed 3 wool sweaters in this "UnShrinkIt" solution, and at first I thought we had something here. All three sweaters had been shrunk... got tossed into the dryer with my other clothes by my wife or one of the kids (terrible, right?). After soaking them in the "UnShrinkIt" solution and literally hours of wringing, pulling, and stretching (Cabela's outdoor sweaters), they looked much bigger. I honestly think they could have just been soaked in water alone and they would have looked the same, since I worked so hard to stretch them out. My fingers and hands were sore. The sweaters were laid out to dry over the next 3 days, but the chemical smell was nasty. I tried them all on, and they did fit again. Victory! Or so I thought.... Well, you can't wear them smelling like that nasty chemical smell. So naturally, I washed them like I had done many, many times before.... in the washing machine! (strange right?) Then I laid them out to dry again, for another 3 days or so. Well that was that. They completely SHRUNK up again!!! Right back to where they were before I spent all this time and energy soaking, wringing, stretching, pulling. WASTE OF MY TIME!!! I gave the sweaters to my son. He's wearing my XL Tall sweaters at 14.... but they are really about a Medium now. I felt this was a waste of my time and money. I really wanted it to work, but straight up- it just didn't.

This product is amazing. Years ago I purchased an expensive, beautiful, heavy hand knit woolen sweater for skiing, only to have it end up in the washer and dryer with other laundry (not pointing any fingers, dear husband!!). Needless to say, it was too small to wear and the softness had gone from the wool. I had worn it only once and was not too happy. As we all do, for whatever reasons, I saved the sweater for years. Then on the TV show Chronicle, I saw the clip about new products and Unshrinkit. I immediately ordered a bottle. I followed the directions, soaking the sweater in the solution exactly as directed. Because of the thickness of the sweater and it being winter, I dried it in the house on top of heavy towels, turning the sweater frequently, and replacing wet towels with dry towels. The sweater is like new! Soft, back to the original size, and beautiful once again. Needless to say, I was shocked as I did not expect this result! For my sweater, this product was amazing, and I am very happy with the product's quality and effectiveness. Before tossing out that much loved piece of woolen clothing, give this a try! I'm glad I did.

I have an expensive cashmere sweater that randomly shrunk in the same wash cycle I wash all my other cashmere sweaters on. I decided to give Unshrinkit a chance after watching their pitch on Shark Tank. I followed the instructions exactly. When the 30 minutes of soak time ended, the entire house stunk of strong chemical smell. The sweater smelled even worse. I gently stretched the sweater back out to its original size and let it dry. Folks, it shrunk right back to its new size. It did not work whatsoever. I’ve also now washed it on the gentle cycle twice and it still stinks of chemical smell. Complete waste of money.

Bottom line up front- it does work, just don’t expect it to be back to its original state. I would recommend it you have an expensive item that is just barely too small. I was skeptical, but saw it in shark tank so decided to give it a try on my $400 throwback jersey that is 100% wool that I accidentally shrunk. The smell- the product itself had a faint fresh fragrance. Obviously when soaked and wrung out the jersey smelled like, well, wet wool. Which is an awful smell, but not the fault of the product. That’s how wet wool smells. After letting the jersey dry for two days there was no smell at all of neither the product or the wool jersey. Using the product- Soaking and wringing out were fine and easy. If you have a bucket it would be better than the sink as the sink was almost too small. The stretching back to shape was difficult. I worked up a sweat pulling in all directions. I waited a day and it still wasn’t dry so I stretched it again. Maybe it being 100% wool made it more difficult than if it had been a sweater material or blend. The results- You can see in the first pic the initial shrunken state of the cream home jersey compared to the identical brand, size and material blue away jersey. Photo two is the initial stretched state. The jersey definitely stretched back width wise in the body, the sleeves hardly changed, and the length not quite back to original size, but still better. I could feel the difference when trying to stretch it back and the fibers just wouldn’t loosen length wise. Picture 3 is a week later. It can be noted that the jersey has gone back slightly towards the shrunken state so now it is between the initial shrunken state and the initial stretched state.

Tried this as a last-ditch, Hail Mary attempt to make a severely felted sweater at least wearable again. The sweater was a hand-knitted chunky wool sweater (100% merino wool) that was once soft and stretchy and slightly oversized. Although originally a women’s size small, it had shrunk so badly that even a five-year-old could barely get her arms through the sleeves. This product failed predictably, but I honestly didn’t expect anything to reverse the damage, not even partially, because it was so extreme. I overpaid for this product, but I did so willingly because the sweater in question was over $500 (a victim of my husband’s “wash everything in hot water and dry at high heat” approach to laundry, though in his defense I should have kept the sweater and all other “dry clean only” items in a separate hamper). After I soaked the sweater, I began the stretching process and was initially optimistic because I could feel some “give” in the felted wool, which previously would not stretch even a millimeter because the fibers were so tightly bound. Although I was being gentle, I noticed that cracks began appearing in the felted wool. I pulled even more gently at that point, but a hole formed nonetheless. Also, because the felting was worse on one side of the sweater than the other, it remained totally lopsided and misshapen. Look, nothing short of an act of God was going to save that sweater, and I knew that even when I bought this product, but I had to try. I figured I would write this review for anyone wondering if this would work on a severely felted, chunky wool sweater. It will not.

The product does partially un-shrink fabrics. It would be a big plus in my review if the manufacturers were clearer in the product info on a few key points. #1 It's not clear that one bottle is added to one gallon of water, creating enough liquid to soak one bulky item. I now know that my sadly tiny cashmere blanket holds EXACTLY one gallon of that water/Unshrinkit mixture. With a lot of wringing, I was able to moisten my sweater that had also become tiny. #2 Fresh Linen scent? Really? That's a whopper. Rinse, rinse, and rinse again. I'm planning to hit it with some Febreeze or perfume... #3 Be prepared to gain a little width or length, but not both. Every tug gives gratifying benefits, only to give them up when you switch sides. That said, my sad and tiny blanket IS wider than when I started. And I only needed the length in the sweater, so a star goes there. I too saw the Shark Tank episode and was inspired to purchase. If you have a Barbie sized sweater that used to be roomy, forget this stuff. If you have a slightly shrunken item that could use a tug in either direction to return to your wardrobe rotation, give it a go. In the farthest away sink in your place. Update 1/2/16 This company has AMAZING Customer Service people! After my review was posted, I got an email from Nate at Unshrinkit. He wanted to find out if they could do anything to improve my experience. I suggested the info on Amazon could be more clear as to amount of product one bottle will make. I said I would have purchased 2 if I'd known what a small quantity the final dilution was. Nate assured me two bottles would be sent out, no charge. When only one bottle came, I hesitantly emailed Nate (not wanting to appear greedy!) and shortly a second bottle arrived. I have to say the Customer Service is by far the finest part of this firm. The product still has an ungodly odor. The product will NOT restore a tiny blanket to it's original glorious size (second bath DID help tho!) But it WILL make a small sweater less small! And for many that's all that's needed. I give the Unshrinkit folks 4 stars just for caring so much about their customers satisfaction!

I was skeptical after reading mixed reviews, but thought I had nothing to loose, as the sweaters were going to goodwill if I didn't try! I used the product on three merino wool sweaters. I tried on the sweaters before to evaluate how much "stretching" would be necessary, about 1 inch at the neck, shoulders, and width. I filled the kitchen sink with the recommended water per instructions, and put in the three sweaters. The bottle says up to four sweaters, but one of my sweaters was pretty thick and absorbed a lot of water, so for me, no more than 3 sweaters. I soaked for 30 minutes as instructed, but revisited the sink to poke and make sure all areas were "wet". When I poured the product into the sink, there is a nice fresh scent, but as the sweaters absorbed the liquid, there was a slight smell of the "old Perm" days, but very faint, as I was intentionally looking to see if there was a scent, otherwise, I probably would not have noticed. Then I rinsed and set out to dry as instructed. Here is the key, you really really have to stretch the sweaters for it to work, because once it is dry, that is the size you get, so STRETCH to the size you want, as I stated earlier, I did stretch until I had about 1 inch everywhere. My only problem was when you stretch the shoulders, then the bottom creeps up, and then visa versa. I kept visiting the sweaters during the drying process and continued to stretch. Two of my sweaters turned out perfect, the third really thick sweater was a bit more challenging, being hard to stretch the arms, they dried a bit tight. You can tell as you stretch your sweaters, which will perform well with the product, because they are easier to stretch. There was no smell while drying the sweaters outside, but the third sweater did take longer to dry, so I had to bring inside, and then I did notice the smell while drying in the house, but once dry, no more smell, and I have worn them since, and my body temp did not bring out any additional odorl either. I would buy this product again in a heart beat, worth trying than giving some of my fav sweaters away. My only question is.. Once used, will the sweater never shrink again? so safe to hand wash again....?