How to Buy and Care for a Hat in St. Louis

Revised September 14, 2026

The cap came out of the dryer shaped like a taco. A man in Winchester had worn it through six baseball seasons, two roof repairs, and one memorable sunburn, and the sweatband had finally gone stiff and chalky with salt. So he threw it in with the towels. Hot wash, hot dry, done inside an hour. The brim buckled, the crown pulled in most of a size, and the stitching around the logo cracked open like dry paint. Six years of wear, undone by one load of laundry.

Out in New Melle, a woman buys a straw garden hat every spring and kills it by August. The brim goes limp, a dark ring sets in above the band, and by Labor Day the weave has started to split. She blames the hats. The hats are not really the problem. Nothing woven survives being soaked in sweat, hung on a nail in a humid garage, and then flattened under a bag of mulch.

And somewhere out there is a guy who has never owned a hat that fit. Every cap perches too high or leaves a red stripe across his forehead by lunch. He has decided his head is an odd shape. It almost certainly isn’t. He has just never measured it.

Three problems, one set of answers. What follows covers how to measure your head and turn that number into a hat size, what to check during the ten minutes you spend trying one on, which materials actually live through a St. Louis summer and a St. Louis winter, how to clean a sweat-stained ball cap without destroying it, how to store hats so the crown and brim hold, and when a felt or straw hat is worth handing to somebody who does hat work for a living. No brand names here. Just the parts that decide whether a hat lasts a season or a decade.

How to clean a baseball cap without ruining it?

Hand wash it in cool water with a few drops of plain, dye-free dish soap. Work the sweatband with a soft brush, rinse it clean, blot with a towel, then dry it over something head-shaped — a bowl, a coffee can — at room temperature. Skip the washer, the dryer, hot water, bleach, and the dishwasher entirely.

Heat is what kills caps. Not water. A cap can get soaked in a thunderstorm and dry out perfectly fine, because it dries slowly and keeps its shape the whole time. A dryer does the opposite in twenty minutes. The brim goes first, since it is a stiffener sandwiched between two layers of fabric: a pressed cardboard-style insert in older caps, a thin plastic panel in most newer ones. Hot and wet at the same time buckles the first and warps the second. Cotton crowns shrink on top of that, and a cap that shrinks does not come back.

The wash, step by step

Fill a sink with cool water and add a few drops of soap. Swirl it around first so you never put concentrated soap straight onto fabric. Let the cap sit ten or fifteen minutes. Then take a soft brush, an old toothbrush is perfect, and work the sweatband and the front panels in short strokes rather than hard scrubbing. Rinse under cool running water until the suds quit. Never wring it. Squeezing a cap is how a crease becomes permanent.

The salt ring and the stains

That pale outline above the band is dried salt, and it responds better to a pretreatment than to more scrubbing. A thin paste of baking soda and water, or a dab of the same soap worked in and left for a few minutes, loosens it before the soak. Move along the band rather than across it. Be realistic about the outcome: old, set-in stains lighten, they rarely vanish. A clean band on a well-used cap still reads as a well-used cap.

Drying without losing the shape

Blot the cap with a dry towel, press out what you can, and then set it over something roughly the size of a head. A small mixing bowl, a large coffee can, a rolled towel, a plastic cap form. Room temperature, out of direct sun, nowhere near a heat vent. It takes a day, sometimes two in August. Check the brim curve once while it is still damp and correct it with your hands, because whatever shape it dries into is the shape you keep.

How do you find your real hat size?

Wrap a soft tape measure around your head where the hat sits, about a finger above the eyebrows and just above the ears, and read the circumference. Divide inches by 3.14 to get a US hat size; centimeters map straight to European sizing. Measure twice, then round up.

Measuring your head the right way

Use a tailor’s tape if you have one. If you don’t, run a piece of string around your head, mark it with a pen, and lay it flat against a ruler. Keep the tape snug but not pulled tight, level front to back, and make sure it crosses the widest part of the back of your skull. Wear your hair the way you normally wear it. Measure three times and take the largest reading, because a tape that slips up over the crown always reads short.

Turning inches into a hat size

US hat sizes come from an old diameter measurement, so the math is circumference divided by pi. Roughly 22 inches around works out to a size 7. Each eighth of a size is a bit under half an inch of circumference, which is why an eighth matters more than it sounds like it should. Centimeters are easier: a European size is simply the circumference in centimeters, so 56 centimeters is a 56. Most adult heads land in a fairly narrow band, which is why the common run of sizes covers nearly everybody.

Fitted, adjustable, and the space between

Fitted caps use that number directly. Small, medium, and large bands cover a range instead, which is convenient and imprecise, and it is why two large caps can feel nothing alike. Snapbacks and strapbacks buy you room at the cost of a gap in the back. If you land between sizes on a fitted hat, buy up and add sizing tape inside the sweatband. Padding a hat down is easy. Stretching one up is a repair.

What should you check when you try a hat on?

Put it on, leave it on for ten minutes, and pay attention to pressure. A hat that fits sits level, rests evenly all the way around the sweatband, and stays put when you shake your head. No pinch at the temples. No red line on your forehead when you take it off.

The temples are where most hats fail. A human head is an oval, and plenty of hats are cut closer to a circle, so the front-to-back length runs fine while the sides squeeze. Ten minutes in the store tells you what ten seconds cannot. Take it off and look in the mirror. If there’s a red band across your forehead or two sore spots above your ears, that hat will give you a headache by mid-afternoon, and no amount of breaking in fixes an oval problem.

Check crown depth next. A cap that rides high on your head looks perched and blows off in a crosswind; one that swallows your ears is too deep. Look at yourself from the side, not just straight on. Then check the brim or visor for actual shade, since a short flat brim throws almost none, and if you bought the hat for the sun that is the whole point. Same instinct that serves you well when you shop for clothes around St. Louis: wear it a few minutes before you decide.

One more thing that catches people. Different materials behave differently over time. Wool felt gives a little as it molds to your head, so slightly snug is survivable. Straw barely moves, and a structured cap moves less than that. Buy straw and structured hats to fit on day one, and don’t talk yourself into a hopeful half size.

Which hats survive a St. Louis summer?

Loosely woven straw, linen, and cotton survive a St. Louis August. Wool felt and heavy synthetics do not. Humidity here keeps sweat from evaporating, so the fabric stays damp for hours instead of minutes. Pick something that breathes, dries fast, and can be rinsed. Save felt for November through March.

Think about what a July afternoon in Pontoon Beach actually does to a hat. The air is already saturated, so the band soaks through early and stays that way until dark. Salt and moisture together are what rot the stitching around a sweatband and leave the stain that never fully lifts. A hat that dries between wearings lasts years longer than an identical hat that never gets the chance.

For summer, loose-weave straw moves air and stays cool, while a tighter weave blocks more sun and traps more heat, so you are picking a trade rather than a winner. Cotton twill caps rinse easily. Linen breathes and wrinkles, which is fine. Mesh-back caps and wicking synthetics dry quickest of anything, though they hold odor if you let them sit damp. Light colors run cooler than dark ones, noticeably so on asphalt.

Here’s the habit worth building between June and September: wash the cap more often than feels necessary. Every couple of weeks in heavy rotation, not once a season. A quick soak takes ten minutes of real effort and stops the salt from ever setting into the band, which is the damage you cannot undo later.

Winter flips the list. Wool felt and wool knit earn their keep from November on, because they insulate while damp and shed a light snow instead of soaking it up. The trap is wet snow followed by a radiator. Heat is still the enemy, and a felt hat dried too fast shrinks, hardens, and loses its nap. Set it brim up on a clean surface, away from the vent, and let it take its time.

Good felt turns up secondhand constantly, and older hats were often built better than their price suggests. It is worth an afternoon in vintage, thrift, and antique shops around the metro if you want a wool or fur felt hat without paying for new. Check the sweatband and the crown for moth damage before you buy.

Covering something up under that hat brim? Here is what laser tattoo removal involves.

How do you store hats so they hold their shape?

Store a stiff-brim hat upside down on its crown so nothing presses on the brim, and keep caps on a shelf or a rack rather than a hook. Heat, weight, and damp are what deform a hat in storage. A dark closet on the main floor beats a hot attic every time.

The brim carries the shape, and the brim is the fragile part. Rest a felt or straw hat the normal way up and its entire weight sits on the brim edge, which flattens the curl over a few months without you ever noticing it happen. Turn it over. Crown down, brim in the air, on a clean flat surface. A hat stand or a wooden block does the same job and looks better doing it.

Caps have their own rule: stop hanging them by the visor. That hook bends the brim into a shape you did not choose and holds it there for months. A shelf, a rack, or a wall of clips that grip the crown works better. If you stack them, keep the stacks short and stuff the crowns with a clean shirt or acid-free tissue so the top of each cap does not collapse.

Location matters more here than most people expect. An attic or an uninsulated garage swings from freezing to brutally hot and humid, which dries glue out, hardens sweatbands, and makes straw brittle enough to crack when you pick it up. A basement has the opposite problem, and mildew loves wool felt. An interior closet on the main floor splits the difference. For anything going away for a season, use a box, add cedar for wool, and brush the felt with a soft brush in the direction of the nap before it goes in.

When is a hat worth taking to a professional?

Take it in when the hat is worth more than the repair and the fix needs steam, a block, or a needle. Crushed felt crowns, warped brims, worn-through sweatbands, a hat a half size too small: all of that is routine work for someone with hat equipment. A giveaway cap is not.

Real hat work covers more than most people realize. Steaming and reshaping a felt crown over a wooden block. Re-curling a brim that has gone flat. Replacing a sweatband that has hardened or split, which is the single repair that brings an old hat back to daily use. Re-binding a frayed brim edge, stretching a hat up a size on a stretcher, cleaning and reblocking something that spent thirty years in a closet, lifting the nap with a brush and fine sandpaper. None of that is doable at a kitchen sink.

Straw is the harder case, so go in with expectations set. Steam softens straw enough to coax a brim back, and a loose weave can sometimes be re-shaped, but straw that has cracked or split will not knit back together. Felt forgives; straw remembers. Ask before you pay, and ask whether the work happens in-house or gets sent out, because turnaround changes a lot when a hat has to travel.

Visit two or three shops worth trying instead of committing to the first one. Say plainly what you want — a measured fit, a steam and reshape, a new sweatband — and then compare that against what each place is prepared to provide. One will want to see the hat before saying anything, which is a good sign. Another will tell you straight that it isn’t worth the money, which is a better one. The gap between what you asked for and what you were offered tells you where to go.

This is also the move that makes a secondhand find pay off. People turn up serviceable felt hats at flea markets around St. Louis for very little, and a clean, a reblock, and a fresh sweatband can turn one into the hat you wear for the next ten winters.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use Dawn dish soap to clean my hat?

A plain, dye-free dish soap is the standard home method, and any basic one in that category does the job, since what you need is something that lifts body oil in cool water. Skip anything with added dye, bleach, brighteners, or heavy scent. Use a few drops swirled into a sink of water rather than soap applied straight to the fabric, and test the underside of the brim first on a colored or reproduction cap.

What’s the best way to get sweat stains out of a baseball cap?

Pretreat the band before you soak anything. Work a thin baking soda paste or a dab of mild soap into the stained area with a soft brush, let it sit fifteen minutes, then soak the cap in cool water and rinse. Repeat once if it helps. Stay away from bleach and hot water, which set the discoloration and can yellow white fabric permanently. Old salt rings lighten; they usually do not disappear.

Will washing a cap ruin the brim?

Hand washing in cool water, no. Machines and dryers, often yes. The brim is a stiffener sandwiched between fabric, pressed cardboard in older caps and thin plastic in most modern ones. Heat softens plastic until it warps and saturates cardboard until it buckles, and agitation creases both. Keep the water cool, avoid bending the brim while it is wet, and dry it curved over a bowl so it sets in the shape you want.

Is it better to wash baseball caps in the dishwasher or washer?

Neither, honestly. Dishwasher detergent is harsh on dyes and fabric, and the heat in that cycle is what deforms a brim. A washing machine adds agitation and a spin cycle that are rough on stitching and shape. Hand washing in a sink takes about ten minutes of actual effort and risks almost nothing. If you are going to use a machine anyway, a cold gentle cycle with the cap in a frame, then air drying, is the least damaging version.

How do I convert hat size to inches?

Multiply the hat size by pi, about 3.14, to get head circumference in inches, and divide to go the other direction. A size 7 works out to roughly 22 inches around. Each eighth of a size is a bit under half an inch of circumference, so small steps matter. Centimeters are simpler, since European sizes are just the circumference in centimeters. Land between sizes and you go up, then add sizing tape inside the band.

What’s the average adult head size?

There is no single figure worth quoting, and published numbers vary depending on the population measured and how the measurement was taken. The useful part is that most adult heads land in a fairly narrow band, which is why the common run of sizes covers nearly everyone and why small, medium, and large sells at all. Your own measurement is the only number that helps you at the counter, so take it before you shop.

How to make a hat keep its shape?

Handle it by the brim, front and back, instead of pinching the crown every time you pick it up, since that pinch wears one spot thin over years. Store it upside down on the crown or on a stand. Stuff the crown when you pack it. Keep it out of hot cars and attics, let it air dry on its own when it gets wet, and have felt steamed and reshaped occasionally rather than once it is badly crushed.

Should hats be stored upside down?

For stiff-brim felt and straw hats, yes. Resting on the crown keeps all the weight off the brim, so the curl holds instead of slowly flattening. Caps and soft bucket hats do not need it, and a shelf or a rack is fine for them, as long as you stop hanging them by the visor. If a hat has a fragile or decorated crown, a hat stand or a stuffed crown on a shelf beats both options.

About the Author: The St Louis Near Me Directory Team
Written by a dedicated team of St. Louis locals who live, work, and play right here in the St. Louis metro. Founder Lane Forman and team are committed to building the region’s most trusted directory by verifying listings and connecting local businesses with loyal customers across Missouri and Illinois.

Follow us:
Facebook LinkedIn X Pinterest YouTube

Does AI cite your expertise?

Run Your Free AI Audit

No credit card. No obligation.