How to Shrink a Bathing Suit [To Ensure Good Summer Looks]

Published by Ahmad Jamal on May 31, 2023

Bathing suits are made to be fitting to your body like its life depending on it (not literally), so as to make your body look as ravishing as it should.

However, in different situations, you may find that your bathing suit doesn’t really fit as well as you’d like it to, and thus, you want to know how to shrink a bathing suit to make sure it gets back to the size you bought it for.

Generally speaking, bathing suits are made of materials like nylon, polyester, and spandex, which makes it a bit harder to shrink their fibers.

However, it’s not impossible, it’ll need precision, like we’ll show you in this CleanersAdvisor guide.

In this guide, you’ll know when you need to know the skill of how to shrink a bathing suit, how to do it properly, how to shrink a nylon bathing suit, how to shrink a polyester bathing suit, and more!

Table of Contents

Why Would You Need to Know How to Shrink a Bathing Suit

As we mentioned in the introduction, sometimes you just find that the bathing suit has stretched out its materials over time.

On other occasions, you may have bought the wrong size, or the store you obtained it from has shipped a larger size by mistake.

Moreover, you lost weight but you’d still love to wear your favorite bathing suit.

In either scenario, you’ll need to know how to shrink a bathing suit, to get yours to fit better on your body.

Why Would You Need to Know How to Shrink a Bathing Suit

How to Shrink a Bathing Suit

To shrink a bathing suit you’ll need to soak your suit in hot water, put it through the hottest cycle inside your dryer, repeat the same operation 2-3 times, then enjoy the new smaller size of your bathing suit.

Some would add ironing the bathing suit, we’ll explain this method in the next section, read through.

Here’s How to Shrink a Bathing Suit:

1. Turn your bathing suit inside out to protect the outer pigments from potential damages.

2. Wash your bathing suit by hand, removing oil, grime and dirt. In this step, you’ll need to use a mild detergent, wash the suit in soapy water, and rinse it with fresh water until there are no suds remaining.

3. Boil water in a pot, and soak the suit in the boiling water.

4. Wait until the water with the suit inside it cools to the room’s temperature. (This step takes approximately 15-25 minutes)

5. After the suit cools down, use the highest drying settings on your dryer, and the longest drying time (60-70 minutes), then put the suit into the dryer and turn it on. This allows for the highest level of heat that can cause the shrinkage we’re looking for.

6. Repeat this process 2-3 times (max), but only do step 2 once as you won’t need to clean it every time you expose it to heat.

7. Put on your suit after it has completely dried, and enjoy the improved bathing suit size.

How to Shrink a Nylon Bathing Suit

To shrink a nylon bathing suit you’ll most probably need to iron it.

Turn your bathing suit inside out and start ironing all over the areas you want to shrink.

The heat produced by the iron will cause the fibers to contract, decreasing the overall size of the bathing suit.

Some users applauded using the steam setting on their iron, as it helped shrink the bathing suit more than regular settings.

However, always start slow with the ironing settings, then increase the heating settings gradually for additional shrinking if needed.

How to Shrink a Polyester Bathing Suit

Shrinking polyester bathing suit is similar to shrinking nylon bathing suit as well.

You’ll need to turn the polyester bathing suit inside out, clean it thoroughly with laundry detergent, rinse off the water, put it in the dryer that’s put on the highest settings, then re-do the same steps (without the cleaning) one or two more times.

However, the polyester bathing suits have less probability of stretching (don’t worry, we’ll provide you with tips to help against the stretching of bathing suits), meaning you’ll less likely need to shrink a polyester bathing suit than to shrink a nylon bathing suit.

How to Shrink a Polyester Bathing Suit

How to Shrink a Shein Bathing Suit

Shein bathing suits are on the rise lately, they’re economical and come in various sizes and models, most of those models are trendy and beautiful.

However, since they are made in China, some customers started promoting the thought of ordering a +1 plus size Shein bathing suit, instead of ordering their original size.

This caused some confusion upon the arrival of the ordered bathing suits, as many found them oversized and started wondering how to shrink a shein bathing suit.

Most shein bathing suits are made from nylon and spandex, we already explained how to shrink a nylon bathing suit using an iron.

As for the spandex shein bathing suits, you’ll only need to place your bathing suit in the direct sunlight, as the heat will be effective enough to shrink the fabrics of your shein bathing suit.

Tips to Keep Your Bathing Suits From Stretching

Here are CleanersAdvisor’s top tips that’ll help you prevent the stretching of your bathing suits:

1. If you used your swimming suit, wash it afterwards immediately, regardless if it got wet or not.

2. When not using your bathing suit, refrain from keeping it on rough surfaces.

3. Hang your bathing suits to dry instead of using the dryer whenever possible.

4. Always clean it by handwashing it using cool water and mild detergent.

To Wrap Up

Mastering how to shrink a bathing suit has never been this easy, thanks to the accumulating expertise our CleanersAdvisor experts have offered.

Shrinking your bathing suit can be done in multiple ways explained in this guide, whether it’s made from nylon, polyester, or any other fabric.