How to Wash a Down Jacket: An Expert Guide to Caring for Down Garments

Goose down is a true gift from nature. It is a wonder insulator that can be used to create lightweight down jackets that can keep us warm at the top of freezing mountains where we were not built to survive. This fluffy stuff that ducks and geese produce naturally can deliver massive amounts of heat trapping loft at an incredibly low weight. This magical material does come at a price, though. It has to be treated well or it will fail. And that's what this article is all about—helping you, dear reader and fellow lover of the great outdoors and well designed gear, learn how to wash a down jacket properly. (Spoiler: dry cleaning a down jacket will ruin it.)

For this piece I have called on my two decades of experience as a guide, outdoor retail employee, professional gear tester, and serious down fanboy to build this guide to help you maximize the effective life of your down jacket while still keeping it from getting funky. Because while down is a miracle material when it is at its best, washing it incorrectly can easily bring it to its worst.

A Quick Lesson on Down & Down Fill Power

Here is a fact that blew my mind the first time I heard it: down is not a feather. Down is the fluffy undercoating found beneath the tougher exterior feathers of ducks and geese. Most higher end down comes from geese and the less premium down comes from ducks. Down is an incredibly efficient insulator because while it is super light it creates a great deal of loft, or space that can trap air, that your body can then warm up and insulate you from outside cold. The fact that this super fluffy material can create a ton of that warmth creating dead space in a lightweight package makes it ideal for outdoor pursuits in which you want to remain as warm as possible without carrying undue weight. The quality of down is measured by fill power. Quite literally, a measure how many cubic inches of space one ounce of down can fill. On jackets, you're likely familiar seeing numbers ranging from 600 to 1000—the higher the down fill power rating, the more efficient a jacket will be at trapping heat and providing insulation.

But unlike synthetic insulation which retains it's ability to hold heat when wet, down's achilles heel is moisture. Down clusters lose their loft and insulating properties if they get wet. This is why following expert advice on washing your down garments is so important (this goes beyond just reading the label washing instruction).

How to Know It’s Time to Wash Your Down Jacket

Washing a down jacket is actually good for it if you do it correctly. Over time the oils from your skin as well as dirt and grime that can permeate through the outer shell of your down jacket can affect down’s ability to remain lofty. Wash your down garment too often or with the wrong laundry detergent though, though, and the process can break down the important natural oils that help down maintain its loft and manage small amounts of moisture. So, there is a happy medium to be reached in terms of frequency of washing.

Signs your down jacket needs to be washed:

• Noticeable dirt, stains, or odors. If you are hard on your down jacket, just take care of the smell. Don’t force your tent mate to marinate in your stink to try and lengthen the life of a down jacket.
• Reduction in the loft of the down in your jacket. If it looks physically skinnier, that's a good sign that it could use the revitalization of a proper wash and dry.
• If the outer fabric begins absorbing moisture. Most down jackets have a DWR treatment which allows moisture should bead off of the jacket (yes, this is the root of the PFAS problem the outdoor industry is frantically trying to fix). DWR treatments do wear down over time and with use and will need to be revitalized through washing. Special tech washes are available to restore your garment's waterproofness, be it a Ghost Whisperer or an Alpha SV.

What to Consider Before Washing Your Down Jacket

Washing a puffy jacket—or down pants, sleeping bag, quilt, or other down garment—requires a delicate approach to prevent loft-killing clumping. Harsh detergents, improper drying, or agitation in the wrong type of washing machine can ruin the structural integrity of the down clusters or cause them to distribute in the jacket in ways that create cold spots.

Heat and harsh detergents can also damage synthetic materials, zippers, and trims. It's essential to use a specialized down wash or the most gentle detergent and avoid excessive heat to preserve the integrity of your coat's key materials.

Finally, special care must be taken when drying down jackets to restore their loft. Read on for more on this.

How to Wash a Down Jacket

1. Pre-Wash Preparation

• Close all of your zippers and buttons. This prevents snags and also keeps the jacket from twisting around on itself too much, which can potentially damage its down clusters.
• Spot-clean heavily soiled areas with mild stain remover meant for delicate fabrics to cut excess dirt or oils before washing.
  
• Turn the jacket inside out to protect the outer fabric.

2. Washing Machine Settings

• Use a front loading washing machine. Top loaders with agitators are absolute and utter shredders of the lightweight materials of a down jacket and can actually hurt the structural integrity of the down as well. A top loading washing machine with no agitator on a gentle setting can work, too, but front loaders are ideal if you have a choice.
• Load your jacket in the washing machine alone or with other down items—do not attempt to wash your jacket with another other non-down items at the same time. It may seem wasteful to run a whole cycle for one jacket, but this is a rare occasion and should be treated with extra care.
• Select a gentle cycle with cold water. It might be tempting to use hot or warm water if your jacket is really funky, but don’t. Heat can damage every part of a down jacket and it isn’t worth gambling with.
• Add the appropriate amount of mild detergent down wash—like Nikwax Down Wash Direct or Grangers Down Wash—and follow the instructions on the container, adding the liquid wash directly to the load or using the detergent compartment. Compared to the amount of normal laundry detergent you may use for normal laundry, use a much smaller amount of down wash. Even with well soiled jackets, resist the urge to add more. Trust me, I once doubled the amount of down wash when washing a horrifyingly stinky down jacket after a five day hut trip and ended up having to run it through the wash four times before it was properly rinsed.
• Set your cycle to double rinse after the wash cycle to ensure all soap residue is removed from the down feathers, which can clump if not properly rinsed out.

3. Hand Wash

• Hand washing is a great option if you do not have access to a front loading washer (or any washing machine for that matter).
  
• Fill a bathtub or basin with cold water and mix in the detergent (again, avoid regular laundry detergent). Lukewarm water can be OK but cold is best. Spot washing should be done same as if you were using a machine.
• Submerge the jacket and gently knead it with your hands to clean, like how a cat “bakes bread.”
• Empty the basin then rinse your down jacket thoroughly until all of the down wash residue is gone it. You will know this when water runs clear through the jacket and no more bubbles come out of the jacket when you submerge it in fresh cold water.

How to Dry a Down Jacket After Washing

1. Initial Steps

• Gently press out excess water after the washing process. I suggest laying the jacket down on a clean flat surface and apply gentle but firm pressure on it with your hands to push out the moisture. Do not wring or twist the jacket because this can damage the down clusters and cause clumping.

2. Dryer Settings

• Use a low-heat setting. This is a hard suggestion to follow because of how dramatically longer it takes to dry something on a low-heat setting. But it's very important to ONLY use low heat in the drying process. Even if it is super annoying to let a machine run for hours when you know you a blast of heat would remove the moisture in a fraction of the time. Please resist this urge. The heat can not only damage the down but any treatments the jacket may have as well.
• Add clean, new tennis balls or drying balls to the tumble dryer. This step seems weird after all of the dainty treatment we have given our down jackets, but trust me, it works. The repetitive, blunt hits that a tennis or dryer ball will deliver to your jacket will help break up clumps of down and restore loft to the down baffles as the jacket dries.
• Drying a down jacket the correct way can take several hours, so please be patient and ensure the jacket is completely dry before wearing or storage.
• Pro tip: to confirm a down item is fully dry, press it to your cheeks to gauge for moisture. If you're even the slightest bit unsure at whether it's bone dry, but it back in the dryer for another round of low heat.

3. Air Drying (Avoid if Possible)

• For the record, air drying is suboptimal and a pain in the ass to do right. But it also might be your only option, especially if your down jacket or sleeping bag gets wet while camping or deep in the backcountry. So while we should consider air drying your last resort, let's address it anyway.
• Lay the jacket flat on a clean dry towel in a well-ventilated area. A couple cotton shirts could work in a pinch.
• Periodically fluff and redistribute the down within its baffles by hand to prevent clumping. This is the annoying part that is really essential to get a proper air dry for a down jacket. I have waved jackets around and hand kneaded the baffles for this redistribution process in the past. It works, but it's time consuming and inefficient.

Additional Tips for Storage After You Wash a Down Jacket

Since properly drying a down jacket takes significantly longer than drying most of the clothing in your closet, it will be tempting to put it away a little wet—don’t. If that down is holding onto even a bit of moisture and gets stuffed away in a bin for months it will come back out both gross (i.e. maybe moldy and musty) and structurally damaged from the prolonged contact with moisture. I cannot overstate how important it is to make sure your jacket is fully dry before you store it, especially if it's a big winter jacket and you are putting it away for the summer months and don’t plan to give it much or any fresh air.

Do not store your jacket compressed or in a tight space like a densely packed clothing rack or closet if possible. Whether a down jacket, sleeping bag, quilt, or comforter, when down stays compressed for long periods of time, it damages its structure and kills its loft (and thus its insulating abilities). Even though packability is often a selling point for down, don’t leave it in a stuff sack over a summer to save room in a storage space. It will be a much less lofty jacket when it comes out of storage in the fall. Instead store your down items in a perforated laundry bag or large, mesh sack like this.

What type of detergent should you use to wash your down?

I used to work at a Patagonia retail store in the early aughts and every time a down jacket came back as a return I asked the same question: what are you using to wash this jacket? The answer was inevitably that they were using the same detergent they wash the rest of their clothes with which was the cause for the down losing its loft. I would still return the jacket because I was a chill guy and because of Patagonia’s very generous policy at the time, but the fact remains that regular laundry detergents often strip the natural oils from down clusters, reducing their loft and in turn their ability to insulate. Fabric softener was even worse at kicking the hell out of that delicate down structure because it would adhere to it and diminish loft even further.

Since my time as a retail employee, I have always used the same down specific wash for my jackets as well as for my down sleeping bags. I use Nikwax Down Wash Direct and have found that I can keep a down jacket fully alive and lofty after hundreds of washes and four to five years of heavy use. You can likely get away with the mildest of regular detergents like the scent free ECOs detergent, but I honestly haven’t tried. If you do choose the detergent route, or are in a super pinch and can’t get your hands on a down-specific wash, make sure it doesn’t have any type of fabric softener, added scents, or bleach in it. Nikwax has proven strong enough to get rid of the ungodly odors I have put my insulating jackets through while actively re-invigorating the loft of the down inside.

Other materials in a jacket that you should consider when washing?

Down is obviously the defining component of these insulating jackets, but it isn’t the only component. Before you attempt to wash yours, it is important to understand all it's parts.

• Outer Shell: Typically made from synthetic fabrics like nylon or polyester. They are usually a thin material to keep the overall weight of the jacket lower but it is worth noting that these can be super fragile. The outer shell is often treated with Durable Water Repellent (DWR) coatings to resist moisture that need to be washed carefully and often reapplied through washing.
• Inner Lining: Lightweight synthetic fabrics that provide comfort and house the down.
• Baffles: While technically not a material in the jacket, baffles are the places that catch and hold on to the down to create the loft—they are often horizontal lines spanning the jacket—and usually contain a ton of stitching which offers another layer of need for gentle washing.
• Zippers, Elastic, and Trim: All of these other bits are made from plastic, metal, or rubber-like materials that will break down more quickly with improper washing or drying.

How do you fix a tear in a down jacket?

The easiest way to fix a tear in a down jacket is with specially made tape. Duct tape will work in a pinch, as will gaffer tape (and will give you real mountain town credit) but specialty brands like Tenacious Tape are best and will be most effective. These patches are available in rolls of tape or small sized patches. I recommend keeping some of this tape in your backpack, glove box, or even down jacket pocket.

How to wash Patagonia down jacket

Follow the same instructions above. But for the TL;DR folks, the process to properly wash a Patagonia down jacket is to use cold water, a front loading washing machine, special, gentle down wash detergent, and a dryer on low heat. This is also how you wash a North Face 700 down jacket and how you wash a Monclear down jacket. Any down jacket!