Sarah is a regular contributor to fullclutch.com, and prefers her sweaters pill free.
Sweater pills can be, well, alright. We’ll skip that bad joke. They can be an annoyance. Especially if you a purchase a sweater, and after only a few wears, you have pills developing from friction and washing. It’s a natural occurrence with fabrics, but those pesky little pills can take a sweater from great looking to banishment to the bottom of a dresser drawer in no time. What to do about them?
There are a few different options out there. One of the great overlords of our universe, Martha Stewart, gives us a pretty simple way to handle it, just use a fine toothed comb flush against the fabric and comb the pills off. The danger in this is you can easily catch the weave of the sweater and snag it. There are combs
Admittedly, I’ve only used a fabric shaver in the past, so I can’t speak for other forms of manual pill removers. Recently while browsing through Amazon though, I came across the Lilly Brush
Sweater pictured is a heavily worn J. Crew Factory Merino V-Neck from 2011
The Lilly Brush also claims to be good for pet hair and lint removal, but I haven’t found that to be the case. It works O.K. for those two, but a sticky roller works better. As far as pill removal though, I have to say, I’m impressed. I’ve used it on several different fabrics, including cotton that had some tiny pilling going on, and cashmere gloves, and the brush has worked on all of them. Plus the brush itself is compact and comes with a cover, making it easy to take along on travels. And Martha’s fine tooth comb can come into play still, it’s the best way to remove all the pills from the Lilly Brush. See, we CAN all get along. Maybe.
I’d say the $12.95 I spent on the Lilly Brush through Amazon was well worth it. With Amazon Prime, shipping was free (yes, it’s fulfilled by Amazon). If I would have had to pick up shipping, I might have just gone the fabric shaver route, but I have yet to regret it worked out the other way. My sweaters are looking better for it, and there is a random additional benefit. For those of you who are the type that likes to vacuum a floor clean methodically, using the Lilly Brush is oddly soothing. Pill remover and therapist in one. But be careful, you don’t want to brush your sweater into oblivion.
Do you have a favorite de-pilling tool or method? You know the drill… leave it in the comments.
Joe, would you say you’d prefer this Lilly Brush over a fabric shaver? Since you’ve used both, I’d like to hear on your experience on lambswool and cashmere sweaters especially if you did use on either. I have a fabric shaver that works fine for the purpose, BTW, but I could give this a go if it is even better and less destructive perhaps.
FWIW, I just use an old disposable shaver for this.
As much as I enjoy the clothing/accessories reviews and deals, some of the best stuff on Dappered is the utilitarian advice on things like polishing, hanging clothes and now how to get rid of piling. Well done.
Brilliant. May have to pick that up. Nothing more irritating that a favorite sweater gone pilly
Oops, sorry I see that it was written by “Sarah” and not Joe.
yup you can use a razor for this and it works great. I use the precision, single-blade on the back of a gillette fusion.
Yeah be sure to lather it up real good first though.
I use a sweater comb – it’s got a plastic handle and a bit of the same material sweater stones are made of embedded on the working edge. It’s easier to wield accurately than a sweater stone, but just as effective. I may try a razor next time I need to de-pill a sweater though – it makes sense that something designed to cut hair would be perfect for cutting pilling off a sweater.
I agree. I was going to make the same suggestion. I had two J. Crew Merino sweaters that were starting to pill badly and after doing some googling, I found that inexpensive solution and decided to give it a go. Worked like a charm.
Kenny, I actually do prefer the Lilly Brush to a fabric shaver, simply because there are no batteries to deal with. I would happily use either though, and the nice thing about the fabric shaver is it takes slightly less effort than the Lilly Brush. Both are good for pill remover, but make sure you read reviews and get a recommended fabric shaver if you go that route.
We tend to use a little portable fabric shaver (the battery-powered ones) for needs such as these. However, it sure would be nice to start asking, “Sweetie, where’s the Lilly Brush?” – as opposed to the brow-raiser: “Honey, have you seen the ball-shaver?”
This looks fantastic! I have tried using a sweater shaver and it really ended up damaging my sweater to the point where i had to throw it out. It may have been user error but I never got the courage to try it again. The Lilly Brush looks like it will be gentle to my sweaters. Going to get one and give it a try! Thanks for the article!
Hi Sarah- My name is Elsie and I am the inventor and President of Lilly Brush. This article was a very nice surprise to all of us at LB Co when it popped up on our Google alerts scan this morning. We love it when we hear about happy people saving sweaters. We saw that a reader asked if LB works on cashmere, and yes it does. Lilly Brush works on all natural fibers. For those who are used to using a razor, or stone, or the “comb” the difference is very noticeable with our product. Lilly Brush glides and smooths while trapping pills. Other pill removers grab and cut. Razors flat out slice whatever the blade catches on….a little dicey with a $200+ cashmere fave:) Anyhoo, I could wax on for pages. Thanks Sarah! Keep saving sweaters…it’s actually kinda fun, isn’t it? 😉 E.
Elsie, thanks for the great product! And my sweaters thank you too.
I just bought the lily brush as was very disappointed with the result…so much that my fiance scolded me for buying a $13 oversized toothbrush and continued to use an electric pill remover in a pepsi challenge against it to prove her point. I have to admit all the lily brush did was to comb the hairs of the pills…then we used the electric remover to finally remove them from our clothes.