A curtain is usually the largest single piece of fabric in a Kolkata home, and the one nobody thinks about until it has quietly gone grey, or until a guest bedroom smells faintly of damp and it turns out the smell is coming from the window.

Almost everything written on the internet about cleaning curtains was written for somewhere else. It assumes a sewn-in care label, a tumble dryer, a warm dry room to hang things in, and a climate where fabric left folded overnight is merely damp by morning. Here it is not damp by morning. It has started to smell, and by the third day it has spotted.

We have been making and hanging curtains in this city since 1971, which means we are also the people who get shown the results when a cleaning goes wrong. A pinch-pleated drape that came back from the machine with a heading like a concertina. A blackout curtain whose coating has gone to flakes on the bedroom floor. A nine-foot drop that now finishes two inches above the floor and never will again. In most of those cases the curtain was fine the day before.

So here is the honest version, for our fabrics, our windows and our weather.

Before you wash anything, work out what you are actually holding

A ready-made curtain off a shelf is essentially a hemmed sheet of cloth. A made-to-measure curtain is a constructed object. It usually has a face fabric, a lining behind it, sometimes an interlining between the two, a stiffener called buckram inside the heading if it is pinch-pleated, and often small lead weights sewn into the bottom corners.

That matters for one reason: those layers do not shrink at the same rate. Wash them together and the lining can tighten more than the face fabric, and the seams pucker along their whole length. No amount of ironing takes that out, because nothing has been creased — the cloth is now a different size to the cloth it is sewn to.

So the first question is never how to wash a curtain. It is whether this particular curtain should be washed at all. If you are not sure what yours is made of, take a photograph of the heading and the back of the hem and bring it in; that is usually enough for us to tell you.

Most curtains do not need washing. They need vacuuming.

This is the single most useful thing in this article, and it is the thing no cleaning service will tell you, because there is nothing in it for them.

What makes curtains look tired in Kolkata is rarely a stain. It is fine traffic dust, settled evenly over several square metres of cloth, which dulls the colour without ever looking dirty in any one place. If you live anywhere near a main road — and on Central Avenue we certainly do — that layer builds up within weeks.

Dust is removed with a vacuum, not with water. Use the soft brush attachment on the lowest suction setting, work from the heading downwards in overlapping strokes, and do the back as well as the front. Ten minutes per window, once a month, and pay particular attention to the top eight inches, where dust collects heaviest, and the bottom hem, where it mixes with floor grit.

Do that, and a full wash becomes something you do once a year, or once every two years, rather than every few months — which matters, because every wash is a risk and vacuuming is not.

What you can safely wash at home

Broadly: unlined, uncoated, unstiffened curtains in a hard-wearing fabric. Plain cotton panels, polyester sheers, tab-tops, simple eyelet curtains without a buckram heading. Our guide to cotton and linen curtains in Kolkata goes further into how those two natural fabrics behave here.

If yours qualifies, the rules are dull and worth following exactly:

Take every piece of hardware off first. Hooks, rings, clips, and the lead weights if they unpick. A single forgotten metal hook will put a run through a sheer in one cycle, and will chip the drum of your machine on the way.

Shake the curtain out on the balcony before it touches water. Washing dusty fabric turns dust into mud and drives it into the weave.

Cold water, gentle or delicate cycle, mild detergent, lowest spin speed available. Hot water is what shrinks fabric and sets creases. A high spin is what crushes and creases coated backings and stresses the long side seams.

Sheers go in a mesh laundry bag, on their own, with nothing heavy in the drum beside them.

No fabric softener, ever. It builds up on synthetics, it dulls sheers, and on any coated curtain it helps the coating lift away from the cloth. No bleach either, including the oxygen kind, on anything coloured.

What should never go in a washing machine

Some of these will be disappointing, because they are exactly the curtains people most want to freshen up.

Anything lined or interlined — for the unequal-shrinkage reason above.

Pinch-pleated headings with buckram. The stiffener is what holds those pleats upright. Soak it and it softens, buckles and dries wavy. The pleats will never sit flat again, and re-heading is a workshop job, not a home one. If you are unsure which heading you have, our comparison of eyelet versus pinch pleat curtains shows both clearly.

Velvet. The pile crushes under its own wet weight and marks permanently where it folds. Velvet is brushed and dry-cleaned, never washed.

Silk and faux silk. Water spots them, and the marks are usually visible against the light forever after.

Heavy embroidery, appliqué or anything with a printed border. Threads shrink differently from the ground fabric and pull it into ridges.

Blackout curtains: the coating is the whole problem

A true blackout curtain blocks light because a foam or acrylic coating has been bonded to the back of the cloth. Everything that can go wrong with washing one is something that happens to that coating rather than to the fabric.

Heat, a fast spin and fabric softener are the three things that crack it, make it peel away in sheets, turn it stiff and papery, or leave it bubbled. Once any of that has happened it is not repairable, and the curtain no longer blacks out — you get pinholes of light exactly where the coating has flaked.

If the label genuinely says machine washable: cold water, gentle cycle, the lowest spin your machine offers, mild detergent, no softener, and never, under any circumstances, a dryer. If there is no label, or the coating already feels tacky or is lifting at a corner, leave it alone and have it dry-cleaned by someone you tell in advance that it is coated.

There is a better way to own a blackout curtain, and it is worth knowing before you buy the next set: specify a detachable blackout lining that hooks on separately behind the face curtain, instead of a curtain with the coating bonded to it. Then you wash the face fabric normally and simply air the lining. We cover the fabric choice itself in our guide to blackout curtains in Kolkata, and the range sits on our blackout curtains page.

Shrinkage, and why it punishes made-to-measure curtains hardest

This is the failure we are asked about most, and the one people find hardest to believe until it happens.

A shop-bought curtain comes in a standard drop with a generous hem folded up inside it. If it shrinks an inch or two in the wash, the hem simply sits a little higher and nobody notices.

A curtain we have made for you does not work like that. It has been cut so that it finishes exactly where you wanted it to finish — breaking on the floor, or half an inch clear of it, or precisely on the sill. Two per cent shrinkage on a nine-foot drop is more than two inches. The curtain does not look slightly shorter. It looks wrong, in a way you cannot stop noticing, and the only fix is a hem allowance you may not have.

That is the real argument for dry-cleaning anything that was cut to the inch, and it is why we would rather tell you this now than reline a set of drawing-room curtains later. If it has already happened, bring one panel in — our own tailoring team can sometimes let a hem down, if there is enough turned up inside it to let down. Sometimes there is not.

The same logic is why measuring for curtains and the made-to-measure process are worth understanding before you order, not after.

Fabric by fabric: what to do with what you own

What you have	Wash at home?	What actually goes wrong	What we would do
Unlined cotton or linen	Usually yes	Shrinks; creases stubbornly	Cold, gentle, low spin. Re-hang slightly damp.
Polyester sheer	Yes	Snags on hooks; yellows in hot water	Mesh bag, cold, alone in the drum. Hang immediately.
Lined or interlined drape	No	Layers shrink unequally; seams pucker	Dry-clean. Vacuum between cleans.
Pinch pleat with buckram heading	No	Stiffener softens; pleats never sit again	Dry-clean only.
Velvet	No	Pile crushes and marks permanently	Soft brush regularly; dry-clean rarely.
Coated blackout	Only if the label says so	Coating cracks, peels, bubbles	Cold, lowest spin, no softener, no dryer.
Silk or faux silk	No	Water marks; colour migrates	Dry-clean only.

Drying, in a city that does not own tumble dryers

Getting a curtain clean is the easy half. Getting it dry, here, is the half that goes wrong.

The single best trick is to put the curtain back up while it is still slightly damp. Hang it, let it fall full length, and the weight of the fabric pulls its own creases out as it dries. Done properly this saves you ironing nine feet of cloth, which is not a job anyone enjoys.

What you must not do is leave a washed curtain sitting folded in a bucket, a basin or a bag because it is late and you will deal with it tomorrow. In this climate a few hours of that is enough to start the smell, and a full night is enough to start the spotting. If you have washed it, deal with it that day.

Dry in shade and moving air rather than direct midday sun. Strong sun fades colour unevenly along the folds, and over years it rots sheers outright — a sun-damaged sheer will tear along a line when you tug it gently, and that is the point at which no cleaning helps.

And choose your week. Washing curtains during a wet spell in July, with no dry air anywhere in the flat, is asking for exactly the problem the next section is about.

The bottom hem, and why it always goes first

If something is going to fail on a Kolkata curtain, it is the lowest six inches. Fine black speckling appears on the lining first, then works through to the face fabric, and it does not brush off.

That is mildew, and it is worth understanding what causes it, because all of the causes are preventable:

The hem resting on a floor that has just been mopped, day after day. The hem sitting on a marble or stone sill that holds condensation. Drips from a window air-conditioner running down the wall behind the curtain. Rain driven through a grille or a ventilator onto a curtain nobody pulled back. Monsoon air in a room that stays shut all day.

Two things prevent nearly all of it. First, hang floor-length curtains half an inch clear of the floor rather than pooling on it — it looks more tailored anyway. Second, after heavy rain, pull the curtains fully back off the window and let air get to the wall and the glass for a few hours.

If spotting has already started, act while it is dry, not wet: brush it out gently outdoors and air the panel in the sun for a morning. Once the spots have pigmented the fibre — once they are properly black rather than grey — they are, in our experience, permanent. Dry-cleaners can sometimes lift them from a light synthetic. On a cotton lining, rarely.

While the curtains are down, clean what they hang on

Rods, tracks and runners collect a furry mixture of dust and kitchen grease that transfers straight back onto a freshly cleaned curtain the moment you re-hang it. Wipe the rod and the inside of the track with a barely damp cloth, then dry it.

Do not oil or grease a track to make it run smoothly. It attracts dust and within a season it runs worse than before. If gliders are stiff, they are usually cracked or worn and should be replaced — they cost very little. Check the brackets too, because every wash cycle of taking curtains down and putting them back up loosens the screws slightly, and a bracket that has worked loose is how a full set comes down at three in the morning. Our guide to curtain rods, tracks and brackets covers what to replace and what to keep.

Blinds are cleaned, not washed

Nothing above applies to blinds, and the commonest mistake with blinds is treating them like fabric.

Wooden blinds are dusted dry, with a microfibre cloth or a vacuum brush, slats closed one way and then the other. Never wet them. Timber swells, the slats bow, and they stop sitting flat.

PVC roller blinds take a damp cloth and mild soap happily — but let them dry fully in the open position before you roll them up. Rolling a damp blind leaves a mildew stripe the width of the roll.

Honeycomb blinds are vacuumed on the lowest setting only. The cells are what make them work and they will hold water for days if soaked.

Zebra and vertical blinds are cleaned closed and flat, one vane at a time. Our guides to measuring for blinds and the range on our specialty blinds page cover which type suits which room in the first place.

Bathroom curtains are their own category, and we have written separately about shower curtains in Kolkata and the wet-zone problem.

Knowing when a curtain is finished

Cleaning cannot rescue everything, and it is better to hear that before you spend on it. A sheer that tears when you tug it has been sun-rotted and is done. A blackout coating that is flaking is done. A hem that has been mildewed black through both layers is done. A lining that has gone brittle while the face fabric is still good is not done at all — relining costs a fraction of replacing, and is worth asking about.

That last case is more common than people expect. If you are unsure which of these you have, bring a panel to the showroom and we will tell you plainly, including when the answer is that it needs nothing. If it does need replacing, the curtains buying guide and our made-to-measure curtains service are the place to start. If you are planning a refresh before the festive season, the Durga Puja preparation timeline explains how far ahead to order.

Frequently Asked Questions

How often should curtains be cleaned in Kolkata?

Vacuum them monthly and wash or dry-clean them about once a year — every two years is fine for a bedroom that does not face a main road. Homes on busy roads, or with a kitchen opening into the living room, will want the yearly clean. The monthly vacuuming matters far more than the frequency of washing, because dust is what actually dulls a curtain, and every wash carries a small risk that vacuuming does not.

Can I put blackout curtains in the washing machine?

Only if the care label specifically says so, and even then on cold water, a gentle cycle and the lowest spin setting, with no fabric softener and never a tumble dryer. The light-blocking layer is a coating bonded to the back of the fabric, and heat, high spin and softener are what make it crack, peel or go stiff. If the label is missing, or the coating already feels tacky, have it dry-cleaned and tell the cleaner it is coated.

Will my curtains shrink if I wash them?

Natural fabrics usually shrink a little on a first wash, and lined curtains are the real risk because the lining and the face fabric shrink at different rates and the seams pucker. On a made-to-measure curtain cut to an exact drop, even two inches of shrinkage is visible and often permanent. Cold water and a low spin reduce it; dry-cleaning avoids it.

How do I get rid of the black spots at the bottom of my curtains?

Those spots are mildew from monsoon damp, a hem resting on a wet floor or sill, or condensation and AC drip behind the curtain. If it is recent and still greyish, brush it out dry outdoors and air the panel in the sun for a morning. Once the spots are properly black the mould has pigmented the fibre and it is usually permanent, particularly on a cotton lining. Preventing it is realistic: hang the hem half an inch clear of the floor, and pull curtains right back to air the window after heavy rain.

Should lined curtains be washed or dry-cleaned?

Dry-cleaned. Two or three layers of different fabric sewn together will not shrink at the same rate in water, and puckered seams cannot be ironed out because nothing has been creased. This applies equally to interlined curtains and to anything with a buckram pinch-pleat heading.

Can I iron or steam curtains?

Usually you do not need to. Re-hang the curtain while it is still slightly damp and its own weight will pull the creases out as it dries. If you must, iron on the reverse at a low setting, and keep a steamer well away from velvet, from anything coated, and from the buckram inside a pleated heading.

Do I have to take the hooks out before washing?

Yes, all of them, along with rings, clips and any loose lead weights. A single metal hook left in will snag a sheer beyond repair in one cycle and can damage your machine. It is tedious, and it is the step people skip and then regret.

Not sure whether yours can be saved? Bring it in.

If you are looking at a curtain and cannot tell whether it needs a clean, a new lining, a re-hem or replacing altogether, bring one panel to the showroom. We have been making curtains in Kolkata since 1971, for more than 6,500 homes, with our own tailoring and installation team rather than outsourced workrooms — so we can usually tell you in a minute what is worth doing, including when the answer is nothing.

Avikar Furniture & Furnishings
46 Central Avenue, Kolkata 700012
Monday to Saturday, 10:30 AM to 7:00 PM · Parking available on request
Call or WhatsApp 8080095551

Message us on WhatsApp · Browse curtains · Made-to-measure curtains · Cotton and linen · Upholstery · Book a free consultation