A good cap earns its stains. Worksite dust, sweat from a hot Aussie summer, red dirt from the trail — that's a cap being used the way it's meant to be. But there's a right way and a wrong way to bring it back to life, and the wrong way is how a $60 cap ends up warped, faded, or in the bin after one trip through the washing machine.

How you wash a cap depends entirely on what it's made of. A 100% cotton structured cap, a foam-front trucker, a wool felt hat and a leather-patch cap all need different treatment — get it wrong and you can shrink it, warp the brim, or wreck the embroidery.

Can you put a hat or cap in the washing machine?

No — not if you want it to keep its shape. Structured caps, cotton or foam-front, have a rigid front panel that a washing machine's agitation will warp, and a dryer will do the same or worse. Washing a cap by hand is the safest method for every material below, and it takes about ten minutes of actual work.

The whole method, in one line: cool water, mild detergent, a soft toothbrush on the turned-out sweatband, and your other hand supporting the front panel so it holds its shape.

Unstructured caps — soft, unlined, no stiffener in the front panel — survive a cold gentle cycle in a laundry bag more often than not. Most caps worth owning aren't unstructured. If yours has a care label sewn into the sweatband, check it first; it overrides everything here.

1. Cotton and embroidered baseball caps

This covers most premium structured caps, including our Pioneer and Quiet Patriot — both a tight-weave, 100% cotton structured build. Cotton handles a proper wash well, but the embroidery and heat-pressed design need a gentler touch than the fabric itself.

How to wash a baseball cap:

1. Dust off loose dirt with a dry, soft-bristled brush before you introduce any water.
2. Fill a sink or basin with cool water and a small amount of mild detergent.
3. Submerge the cap and gently swish it around, then let it soak for 5–10 minutes.
4. Scrub the sweatband and any stained areas with a soft toothbrush. Go light around embroidered logos and heat-pressed designs — aggressive scrubbing can lift threads or crack a heat-press finish.
5. Rinse thoroughly under cool running water until the water runs clear.
6. Squeeze excess water out of the crown gently — never wring or twist. Pat dry with a towel.
7. Reshape the cap over a bowl or a balled-up towel to hold the crown, and air dry in a shaded, ventilated spot for at least six hours. Keep it out of direct sun, which will fade the colour.

Browse the full Baseball Caps Australia range.

2. Foam-front trucker and mesh-back caps

This is the build behind our Crux, Digger and Shadow — a structured foam front panel with a breathable mesh back and an adjustable snapback closure. The foam is what makes this cap sit sharp, and it's also the part that's easiest to wreck if you soak it too long.

How to wash a trucker cap:

1. Mix cool to lukewarm water with a small amount of mild laundry detergent in a tub or sink.
2. Let the cap soak for around 15 minutes — no longer. Extended soaking is what causes foam-front panels to warp or delaminate.
3. Scrub gently with a soft brush or cloth, focusing on the sweatband, brim and crown. Ease off around the mesh back — it's more delicate than the foam front and can tear if you're rough with it.
4. Rinse thoroughly under cool running water and gently squeeze out excess water. Don't wring.
5. Pat dry, then set the cap over a bowl or cap form to hold the crown shape.
6. Air dry at room temperature, away from direct sunlight or any heat source.

Never put a foam-front trucker cap in the washing machine or dryer. The combination of heat and tumbling is close to guaranteed to warp the foam panel permanently — it won't go back into shape.

Browse the full Trucker Caps Australia range.

3. Wool felt caps

Not part of the current Patriot Caps range, but if you've got a wool felt cap or hat in the wardrobe, it's worth knowing this one is the most delicate of the lot. Wool fibres contract permanently under heat, moisture and agitation — a process called felting — which is exactly what a washing machine does to them.

How to wash it:

1. Start with spot cleaning, not a full wash. Work one small area at a time with as little liquid as possible.
2. If a full clean is genuinely needed, fill a sink with cool water (never hot) and a wool-safe detergent, then gently massage the hat through the water. Soak for about 20 minutes.
3. Don't wring it out. Roll the hat in a thick towel and press to absorb moisture.
4. Reshape carefully by hand and let it air dry flat, away from any direct heat — no hair dryers, no radiators.

4. Leather patch caps

Also not part of our current range, but a common style worth covering. The fabric and the leather patch need two different approaches — treat them as separate jobs on the same cap.

How to wash it:

1. Dust off loose dirt with a dry cloth first.
2. For the fabric: mix a few drops of mild soap into cool water, dip a cloth in, wring it almost dry, and dab the fabric only.
3. For the leather patch: wipe with a cloth that's barely damp with plain water — never soak it — then immediately dry it off with a separate dry cloth.
4. Stuff the crown with a small towel to help it hold its shape, lay the cap flat on a dry towel, and air dry away from heat or sun.
5. Once fully dry, a small amount of leather conditioner buffed in with a soft cloth will keep the patch from drying out and cracking over time.

How to get sweat stains out of a hat or cap

Sweat marks on a hat band aren't dirt. They're salt and skin oils that have dried into the fabric, which is why rinsing with water alone does almost nothing and why scrubbing harder just wears the band out.

The thing that actually shifts them:

1. Turn the sweatband out so you're working on it directly rather than through the crown.
2. Make a loose paste of bicarb soda and cool water — about three parts bicarb to one part water.
3. Work it along the band with a soft toothbrush, following the weave rather than scrubbing across it. Leave it to sit for 15 minutes.
4. Rinse under cool running water, then wash the cap normally using the method for its material above.

Two things to avoid. Hot water sets a sweat stain rather than lifting it — the proteins in sweat behave like egg on a pan. And chlorine bleach makes it worse, not better; it reacts with what's already in the band and turns the mark yellow permanently.

Most of this is preventable. A cap that gets to dry out properly between wears stains far more slowly than one that goes straight from your head into a ute console or a work bag.

How to clean a white hat or cap without yellowing it

White hats go yellow around the band and the inside of the crown, and it usually isn't grime — it's oxidised sweat. That matters because it changes what works.

• Treat the band with the bicarb paste above before you wash the whole cap. Most of the yellowing is concentrated there.
• An oxygen-based soaker — the Napisan sort — is safe on white cotton and genuinely effective. Use it cool, not hot, and don't leave a structured cap sitting in it longer than about 20 minutes.
• Never use chlorine bleach on a cap. On white cotton it strips the fibre and, on anything that has had sweat in it, drives the yellowing deeper. It is the single most common way people ruin a white cap trying to save it.
• Dry it in the shade like any other cap. Sun will lift a white cotton panel a little, but it also degrades the stitching, the adhesive behind a heat press and the foam in a trucker front. Not a fair trade.

How to dry a cap and keep its shape

Shape is lost in the drying, not the washing. A cap dries into whatever shape it is sitting in, and it holds that shape stubbornly afterwards.

• Give it a form. A mixing bowl upturned on the bench, a rolled towel, a football, or an actual cap form — anything that holds the crown at full height while it dries.
• Set the brim before you walk away. Curve it by hand while the cap is still damp. A brim dried flat will stay flat.
• Let it dry completely. Six hours minimum, and longer for a foam front. A cap that goes back on the shelf slightly damp will hold a crease and can go musty through the band.
• Don't rush it with heat. A hair dryer, a heater or a hot car will shrink cotton and warp foam. There's no fast version of this.

If a cap has already gone out of shape, it is often recoverable. Damp the crown lightly with cool water, work it back over a bowl by hand, and let it dry fully. Cotton comes back well. A foam front panel that has been through a dryer usually doesn't, and that's worth knowing before you spend an afternoon on it.

How to store caps between wears

Most caps lose their shape in a cupboard rather than in a sink.

• Don't stack things on them. A cap at the bottom of a shelf under a pile of gear flattens permanently.
• Hang them or nest them. A hook through the back strap works. So does stacking crown into crown, in the same orientation, like a set of bowls.
• Keep them out of the car. A ute cabin in an Australian summer gets hot enough to soften the foam in a trucker front and warp it against whatever it's resting on.
• Keep them out of the sun. A cap sitting on a windowsill or a dashboard will fade on one side only, which is more noticeable than fading all over.

The mistakes that ruin a cap for good

Regardless of material, these are the ones we see wreck a good cap every time:

• Washing machines. The agitation warps structured brims and foam panels, and can pull embroidery loose.
• Dryers. Heat plus tumbling is close to a guaranteed way to shrink, warp or crack a cap. Air dry, always.
• Wringing it out. Twisting the crown to get water out is one of the fastest ways to lose the shape permanently. Squeeze gently instead.
• Chlorine bleach. It yellows white caps rather than whitening them, and strips colour out of everything else.
• Drying in direct sun. It'll dry faster, but it'll fade your colours doing it — especially anything black, navy or a printed design.
• Skipping the reshape step. A cap dries in whatever shape it's sitting in. Set it over a bowl or cap form before you walk away, or you'll end up with a flat crown.

FAQ

Can you put a cap in the washing machine?
Not a structured one, and most caps worth keeping are structured. The agitation warps the front panel and the brim, and no amount of reshaping afterwards fully undoes it. Hand wash instead — it's about ten minutes of work.

Can you put a cap in the dishwasher?
It's a method some people swear by for structured caps on the top rack with no detergent, but it carries real risk — the heat from the dry cycle can warp foam panels and structured brims just as badly as a dryer. Hand washing is the safer bet, especially for a cap you actually want to keep.

How often should you wash a cap?
If you're wearing it daily, aim for every few weeks. Spot-clean the sweatband more often than that — it's where sweat and oils build up fastest, and catching it early means you rarely need a full wash.

Will washing a cap shrink it?
Not if you use cool water and air dry it. Shrinkage comes from heat, so it's the dryer and the hot wash that do it, not the water itself. Cotton is the most likely to move; a foam-front trucker is more likely to warp than shrink.

How do you stretch a cap that's too tight?
Gently, and not much. Damp the crown with cool water, wear it until it dries, and repeat if you need to — mid-weight cotton relaxes into your head shape that way. Don't force a structured cap over a ball or a form; it warps the front panel permanently and you'll trade a tight cap for a misshapen one.

Does washing a cap change how it fits?
It shouldn't, if you hand wash and reshape it properly. What changes the fit is heat and agitation warping the structured front panel. If you're not sure of your size to begin with, our cap size guide covers how to measure your head and how the adjustable snapback range works.

Built to last, if you look after it

Every cap in the Patriot Caps range is built to be worn hard and to hold up — worksite, trail, footy, or flying the flag on Australia Day. A bit of proper care between wears is what gets you years out of it instead of months.

Every cap is also backed by our Lifetime Guarantee on workmanship. If the stitching comes loose, the embroidery unravels or the snapback mechanism breaks, we'll repair or replace it free of charge. It doesn't cover general wear and tear or accidental damage — that's what the care above is for — but a manufacturing fault is ours to fix for as long as you own the cap.

Not sure which size you need? Our cap size guide walks through measuring your head and how adjustable sizing works. Otherwise, have a look through the full range if you're after your next one.