/11 May 2021

Care for Your Uniform and Your Uniform Will Care for You

As one of Europe’s largest workwear providers, we’ve come to know a thing or two about protective workwear clothing. We care about your happiness, comfort and protection whilst working. Therefore, we believe it’s important to provide you with the knowledge necessary to not only select the ideal uniform, but care for it too. By caring for your uniform correctly, you’re extending it’s wearability, ensuring its efficiency, and prolonging the effectiveness of the technicality aspects for certain garments.

Our range of protective workwear is made to last. Using durable materials will keep you safe, but also reduce the number of times a replacement is necessary, saving you money in the process. It is vitally important to carry out regular cleaning of your workwear, especially if your work clothing includes protective elements. Having supplied protective clothing for many years, we have developed and tested our uniforms to continuously make improvements. Once you have received your uniform, it is up to you to ensure that it is properly cared for. It is for this reason that we have compiled a list of care instructions for some of our protective workwear ranges below.

Heat, Flame & Welding Uniforms

Through our continual testing process, we have found that the majority of garments which have been damaged by flame, sparks or splashes were either;

1. Contaminated with a flammable substance which prolonged the burning or,
2. So heavily soiled that the flame retardant properties of the fabric were masked.

This is a prime example of how not caring for your uniform could increase the risk of severe injury. We take the first step to ensure all Alsico garments have been designed with the utmost protection against extreme heat and fire, but the next step to ensure that your uniform keeps performing as hard as you do is entirely up to you.

When it comes to cleaning your heat and flame clothing, the fabric used for most garments is suitable for industrial laundering using synthetic detergents, and soap powders and bleach should be avoided at all costs. It may also be dry cleaned without any adverse effects.

Bearing this in mind, it is incredibly important to understand that PPE does have a shelf life and that if your clothing is continually damaged by heat, flame, sparks or splashes that you replace it immediately. If sparks or hot welding splashes land on the clothing repeatedly, whilst the garment offers protection in that the char will not continue to glow or spread, the garment itself will begin to lose its initial level of protection and deteriorate, leaving the wearer compromised. It is our priority to keep you safe, so we strongly advise replacing workwear when the protective elements appear to be worn out.

One of our highly recommended pieces of flame resistant clothing is the Coverall made with Phoenix £31.95+VAT. A sturdy and flexible garment which conforms to the following accreditation standards: EN ISO 11611:2015 Class 1 A1 and EN ISO 11612:2015 A1, B1, C1, F1. Available to be embroidered with your company branding should you wish, this coverall is ideal for anyone working near open flames or exposed to sparks and splashes.

High Visibility Uniforms

Hi-visibility clothing must be kept in a clean condition in order to function correctly, this is simply because dirty clothing will reduce the visible performance of the garment and as a result may put the wearer at risk.

It is vitally important to note that in order to fully care for your hi vis workwear, the wearer must carefully select the washing and drying processes used for high visibility garments. Incorrect processing may permanently damage the fluorescent material and retro-reflective tape. It is for this reason that we strongly advise a suitable cleaning process which will not affect the performance of the tape:

• High alkaline detergent products should not be used for cleaning.
• Bleach should not be used.
• Low pH conditions will increase the life of the reflective tape.
• High temperature drying will damage the reflective lenses, as will over-drying

Our high visibility uniforms are built to last, and are highly recommended by various industries for their durability, comfort and efficiency. Our Gryzko® Hi-Vis Contrast Coverall (£89.95+VAT) is great for any work which requires high visibility clothing. With the accreditation EN ISO 20471:2013 Class 3, it fully conforms to safety standards for high visibility clothing.

 

Chemical Splash Garments

Work clothing that protects you against all forms of chemical splashes is incredibly important, and needs to be manufactured to the highest standards in order to protect the wearer from potentially harmful chemicals.

In order to maintain the protection levels of our chemical splash garments, we recommend the following guidelines should be observed during laundering:

• Wash your chemical splash uniform separately to garments with a standard type of finish.
• To reactivate the finish, dry in a tunnel dryer, ensuring the temperature does not exceed 160°C (recommended temperature is 130 to 160°C).
• If the garments are dried in a tumble dryer, the inlet air temperature of the tumbler should attain at least 120°C. This ensures the “reactivation” of the finish and increases the repellency performance.
• Tumble drying at low temperatures and line drying should be avoided.

We believe that your garments should be durable for long periods of time, to ensure high quality which lasts. Therefore, we advise that the lifetime of the garment be increased further by rinsing the garments with a fluorocarbon-based rinsing agent in the final rinse of the wash cycle, we recommend the re-treating of chemical splash garments be carried out after every wash cycle for maximum performance, however if this is not possible a treatment every 5 wash cycles should suffice. This applies only if accompanied by adequate drying conditions to reactivate the FC finish properly.

Take a look at our chem splash Lab Coat (£23.95+VAT) which is Fabric Tested to BS EN 13034 or Equivalent. 

All Alsico garments have been designed to ensure you have the ultimate protection when it comes to visibility in poor weather conditions and low lighting, and preservation against flame and heat or chemicals. But, ultimately it’s up to you to ensure that your uniform keeps performing as hard as you do via rigorous care.

These are just some of the types of protective workwear ranges we cover, to view our full ranges take a look at our protective clothing to find the suitable garments for your job role. We fully believe in the importance of keeping you safe and protected whilst working, that’s why we only stock the highest quality protective workwear possible. If you are unsure on how to care for any of your garments, here at Alsico we’re happy to help, just give us a call on 01772 662500.

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