I burned 12 hours on a stuck zipper before realizing it was a 30 second fix
My kid's winter coat zipper got stuck halfway up last weekend and I tried everything from pliers to soap to yanking it while she cried. After two evenings of fighting with it I finally looked up a video that said to pinch the top of the zipper and pull the fabric down, and it worked in seconds. So my question is, should I feel dumb for not knowing that trick or is this just one of those things nobody teaches you until it happens to you?
Your fix actually works best when the zipper is stuck because the fabric got caught in the teeth, but that is not the only reason zippers jam. If the slider itself is bent or the teeth are messed up, pinching and pulling the fabric down will not do a thing and you will just be back to fighting with it. The soap trick is also kind of misunderstood, since it helps a stiff zipper slide but does nothing for one that is truly stuck. So you were not dumb, you just had one kind of problem and the video happened to match it. Next time it jams up high like that, check first whether the fabric is wedged in the teeth, because if it is, that pinch move is the whole answer.