In A Nutshell

soak fiber wash - round two

 The yarn: Mirasol Miski in #441 (iron ore) I love this yarn in every way.

The product: Soak fiber wash in 3 different scents - flora, aquae, and celebration. 

Skien #1 soaking in a gallon of plain cold water, as you can see by the lack of suds.

After 15 minutes of soak time. I also squeezed out the excess water from the yarn over this sink full of water. There's nothing much to report other than an almost unnoticeable amount of murkiness to the water. 

Skien #2 soaking in a gallon of cool water with Soak in the Aquae fragrance.

My take on the Aquae scent:
This is a nice fresh-out-of-the-shower smell. It's clean and every bit as 'watery' as the name promises. Although, I have to admit that it does vaguely remind me of cheap men's cologne... like Cool Water... or something.

After 'Soak'ing for 15 minutes and squeezing the excess water from the yarn back into the sink, this is what I got. There is no denying that there's some icky stuff going on in there. I am genuinely surprised that there was such a noticeable difference between the plain water and the Soak water.  

I put the plain water skien (#1) back in a fresh gallon of Soak water (Celebration scent) and got the same murky water as above. Kinda gross. After my first Soak wash trial, I was a bit skeptical of the effectiveness of this product. Now I am sold.

My take on the Celebration scent:
Years ago (like a decade) there was a website where you could customize your own fragrance through a variety of personality questions. They would send several trial sized vials of eau de toillet to you and you could choose the one you liked the most and order the bigger size. The scent of Celebration is pleasantly similar to the one fragrance in that packet of samples that really resonated with me. It smelled of berries and sweet flowers. This fragrance is my favorite.

My take on the Flora scent:
I opened the Flora packet just for the heck of it. I really like this one too. Kinda reminds me of hotel soap, but I think it's great. This fragrance is my second favorite.

Something to keep in mind: this particular alpaca yarn is very burlap-y smelling. The Celebration fragrance seemed to mask/remove that funky smell better than the Aquos. 

Also, FYI, I purchased these samples with my own money. This is not an endorsement for Soak wash. Like I said before, I was skeptical of the effectiveness of this product and wanted to share my results with you, my fine reader. 

soak fiber wash - a review, kind of

I first heard about Soak wash whilst perusing Ravelry. They were offering a special limited edition scent (Unleash) around Christmas time. I remember thinking that the packaging was eye catching, but not knowing what the heck the product was supposed to be for. Then I hopped on the Soak website to read a bit more about said product.

Wait. I'm supposed to wash my natural fiber yarn before beginning my work? Why did that not seem obvious to me? It should have, because I religiously pre-wash my fabrics before starting any sewing project. Why not do the same for my crocheting projects?

I'm going to be trying it out on this luscious baby alpaca yarn that I purchased from Yarn.com.

In case you're wondering: Soak is a no-rinse, no-residue product. To use, dissolve 5ml (about a capful or 1/2 sample packet) in 1 gallon (about 3.75 liters) of cool water. Soak the item for about 15 minutes, then gently squeeze out the excess water. It is not necessary to rinse out the product (rinsing will remove the fragrance, but it is recommended for lingirie). Lay garments flat to dry. 

After Soak-ing my yarn, and giving it a gentile squeeze, I laid it down in a towel and stepped on it to get out as much h2o as I could. I'm impatient, and I want this stuff to dry. That's probably bad, and I totally freaked out when my yarn came out almost as flat as paper. I thought for sure It would stay that way. Although, I continually toyed with it during the drying process (hard to keep my hands off such gorgeous yarn) and it ended up springing back to life.

It may be a couple of weeks before I show you the completed project. I never know who reads my blog these days, and I don't want any spoilers.

All in all, I can say that there was a fair amount of dye left in the wash water. Although, I can't say for certain whether or not that is attributed to Soak. Perhaps plain cold water would remove the same amount? Hard to say. 

The citrus fragrance is pleasant, but very, very subtle. I was expecting something a bit more punchy, and was a bit disappointed. 

The yarn looks nice, albeit a little less color saturated. 

I think in order to test the true effectiveness of Soak wash, I would need to be a little more scientific about this. More on that soon.