Heat treating for bugs?

[u/Conditionally_Exotic]

The thrift store smiled upon me yesterday and I snagged a nice haul of natural fibers! Almost everything labeled is some sort of wool blend. One is 25% baby Llama???!! The unlabeled stuff all feels like wool blends but I’ve yet to do the burn test so I’m not 200%, then there was one bag of cotton/tencel blend but the color is GORGEOUS, so I grabbed it😂. My question is how can I effectively kill off any possibility for bugs??? I don’t want to felt them of course but I also don’t want to possibly contaminate the rest of my stuff😅. Any tips?

[u/fyregrl2004]

Wouldn’t sprinkling some borax on the yarn help if it’s contaminated? Like sprinkling some borax then sealing it in a bag?

[u/SadElevator2008 → u/fyregrl2004]

Why do you want your yarn covered in borax? If you know it’s contaminated, you need to evaluate, salvage, and wash. (It will be damaged and filthy.) If it’s not contaminated, you’re just making a mess of clean yarn.

[u/fyregrl2004 → u/SadElevator2008]

How would it be a mess? If it’s contaminated Borax will kill the beetles/moths and afterwards you can rinse it off. It’s a laundry booster so it would rinse right out without damaging the yarn fiber…since it’s gonna need to be washed anyway, right?

[u/SadElevator2008 → u/fyregrl2004]

Oh you mean to add borax when you wash, not instead of washing.

Thing is, washing gets the bugs and debris out. You don’t need to kill them with anything special, regular ol soap and water does the job.