A damp cloth, a little mild soap, and patience. Why a Bippie never goes in the machine.
The short answer is on the care tag sewn into every Bippie: surface wash, air dry. This letter is the longer answer, because a Bippie is made differently from most soft toys and it is worth knowing why the machine is off limits, what to do when childhood happens to it, and what a clean Bippie is allowed to look like.
Why not the washing machine
A Bippie is three natural things: a shell of certified organic cotton, a fill of kapok, and a face embroidered in thread. None of them is built for a spin cycle. Kapok is a light, silky plant fiber, and it is what gives a Bippie its pillowy give. Soaked and tumbled, it clumps and takes a very long time to dry all the way through, and a damp inside is the one thing a soft toy should never have. The cotton shell and its gentle dyes are meant for a damp cloth, not hot water and detergent. And the embroidery is stitched by hand into the fabric. A machine is rough on all of it.
So the rule is simple. No washing machine, no dryer, no soaking. Everything else in this letter follows from that.
The everyday clean
Most of what a Bippie picks up comes off the surface. Dampen a soft cloth with cool or lukewarm water, add a small amount of mild soap, and wipe the area gently, working from the outside of a mark toward the middle. Then wipe again with a cloth dampened in plain water to lift the soap. Press, do not scrub. Embroidered eyes and a stitched smile are sturdier than plastic ones, but they still prefer to be dabbed rather than rubbed.
Mild means mild. A little gentle soap does the job. Nothing harsh, no bleach, no strong detergents, no stain sprays, nothing with a warning label. The whole point of a Bippie is what it is not made of, and the cleaning cupboard should not undo that.
When something spills
Sooner is better than later. Blot the spill with a dry cloth first to take up as much as you can, then follow the everyday clean above. For anything that has dried in, a little more patience with the damp cloth usually does it. Some marks fade rather than vanish. A Bippie is a natural-fiber companion, not a wipe-clean surface, and a faint trace of a well-lived afternoon is part of the record.
Drying
Lay the Bippie flat somewhere with air moving, out of direct heat. Turn it once or twice. Let it dry completely before it goes back to work, especially if the cloth went deep. Do not use a dryer, a radiator, or a hair dryer. Natural fibers dry on their own schedule, and the schedule is worth respecting.
Before the first hug
There is nothing to do. Every Bippie is sealed after its final inspection and stays sealed until it reaches your home, never handled on a shelf, never returned and resold. What we inspected is what you open. Unseal it and hand it over.
What a clean Bippie looks like
Not new. A Bippie that has been loved for a year has softer fabric and a gently settled shape. None of that is dirt, and none of it needs fixing. The first Bippie, made in the 1970s, was hugged until there was nothing left of it but a photograph. We would like yours to last longer, and surface washing is how, but a well-loved Bippie is allowed to look well loved. Softened fabric and a flattened corner are not flaws. They are proof.
Everything a Bippie is made of, with the reasons, is on Materials & Safety. If a mark has you stumped, write to info@bippieco.com and tell us what happened. We have probably heard it before, and if we have not, we would like to.
Beloved,
The Bippie Co.