How Much Does Dry Cleaning Cost Shirt – Taking our clothes to the dry cleaners is often a top task on our to-do list, but rarely do we think about how our most precious shirts, pants and uniforms are actually cleaned.
The use of water. And as strange as it may sound, dry cleaning actually cleans your clothes.
How Much Does Dry Cleaning Cost Shirt
Instead of cleaning with water and detergents, garments are cleaned with organic solvents that work to lift stains without damaging delicate fabrics such as silk, wool and velvet. Clothes – yours and other people’s – are washed in a machine similar (although larger, more expensive and much more adjustable) to the washing machines we use at home. But don’t be fooled, dry cleaning is not a process you can do without the proper training and equipment. Most dry cleaners have years of hands-on experience, and organizations like the Dry Cleaning and Laundry Institute provide training and resources for dry cleaners around the world.
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In 1820, Thomas Jennings, a tailor in New York, was trying to find a method to clean his customer’s clothes without damaging the delicate garments. A year later, he filed a patent with the US Patent Office for a process he called “dry sanding.” This patent made Jennings the first African-American to hold a patent in the United States, according to IPOEF. Unfortunately, it was destroyed in a fire in 1836, but the method used in today’s dry cleaners still follows its original process.
According to Enviro Forensics, Jean-Baptist Jolly, a dyer in France, made a similar discovery four years later, in 1825, when a servant working for him spilled kerosene on a paint-stained linen tablecloth. When the kerosene evaporated, he noticed that the stains on the tablecloth had disappeared. Realizing that this discovery had the potential to change the way we clean clothes, Jolly opened the first dry cleaning business in France.
It wasn’t long before dry cleaners found that using petroleum-based chemicals (such as kerosene and gasoline) was not a good option. These chemicals are incredibly flammable and not safe to work with over long periods of time. William Joseph Stoddard, an American dry cleaner created the first non-petroleum detergent for dry cleaning, but it was Michael Faraday who discovered perchlorethylene, which is still the solvent of choice for most dry cleaners.
Perchlorethylene (or perc as it is commonly known) is a volatile organic compound that has been found to be carcinogenic and not good for the environment. Even minor spills can cause major contamination of the soil and groundwater around the dry cleaner facility. For these reasons, the EPA very heavily regulates the use of perc by dry cleaners.
What Really Happens To Your Clothes At The Dry Cleaner?
When you first drop off your clothes at the dry cleaner, they are marked with a unique number to identify each item. This helps busy dry cleaners keep track of their customer’s clothes and avoids the headache of giving the wrong items to a customer when the process is finished.
All garments are visually inspected, and any stains are marked and pre-treated, if necessary. Pre-treatment is done with special chemicals made for specific types of stains and materials. At this point, any decorations or buttons are also covered with a soft cloth to protect them from damage during the dry cleaning process. Some dry cleaners may even choose to remove embellishments and buttons as an extra precaution.
The dirty clothes are placed in a dry cleaning machine. The organic solvent of choice (or water if your dry cleaner uses the wet cleaning method) is pumped into the machine while the clothes are agitated at a gentle pace. These machines are much larger than the washing machines we have at home, but work with the same basic spinning function. Dry cleaners can be set to spin much slower and also have greater temperature control.
When the dry cleaning cycle is complete, the garments are inspected again to ensure that all stains have been removed from the garment. In addition, all buttons, embellishments and seams are checked to make sure they are still intact. If any decorations and buttons were removed during the initial inspection step, they are now reattached.
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Depending on the type of fabric, the dry cleaner will now press, iron or steam each garment to get rid of wrinkles. Many dry cleaners use a mold finish for this step. Shapers are machines that iron a garment with air or steam in the position it is worn. This allows for a smoother, more pristine finish on the dry-cleaned clothes. All garments are given a final inspection before being covered in plastic and returned to its owner.
From the need to produce a solvent that could replace the use of perc, four other methods of dry cleaning (also known as “green” dry cleaning) came: synthetic petroleum (DF-2000), siloxane (Green Earth), liquid carbon dioxide and wet cleaning.
Jodhaira (she/her) is a product review analyst at the Good Housekeeping Institute’s Home Care & Cleaning Lab, where she tests and writes about home appliances, cleaning products and cleaning tips. Before joining GH in 2021, she graduated from Hofstra University with a bachelor’s degree in forensic science and spent two years as an analyst in an environmental laboratory in Queens.
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Everyone has an opinion on how often and in what way different fabrics and garments should be treated. This is why so many people wash their hands of the issue and simply rely on the expertise of a laundry and dry cleaning expert to decide for them, but for those of you interested in just which one to choose, we here at Pearl Street Laundry has all the information to share with you to help with that decision.
Let’s first explain the difference in the cleaning process, since many people don’t know it! Laundry involves water and a washing process similar to “normal” washing for basic clothes, while dry cleaning involves the use of chemical solvents in the washing machine rather than water and detergent.
What Is The True Cost Of Dry Cleaning A Suit?
So what do you choose? Right off the bat, we’ll tell you that your average men’s shirt needs to be washed most of the time. The washing process is much better at getting out the kind of skin-to-cloth contact oil that eventually stains and deteriorates your basic work shirts. Most men choose to allow their dry cleaning service to wash their shirts instead of running them through the dry cleaning process without even realizing it. This washing process ends with the shirt being pressed and stiffened based on the customer’s choice – no starch, light, medium or heavy – and can either be hung or boxed after completion.
There are certain situations where dry cleaning is definitely better, such as in the case of some specialty fabrics that don’t do well with the rough tumble of traditional washers and dryers or water (hence the term dry cleaning). This is of course the main role of dry cleaning in garment care – to handle clothes that need to be treated in a special way due to their fiber content or delicate nature. Even shirts that are normally washed should be dry cleaned if there are heavy dirt or stains that require extra treatment. While dry cleaning chemicals are better at removing certain stains and cleaning delicate fabrics, proper shirt washing can ultimately be better for your shirt in the long run.
There is also the difference in price between the two methods. Laundry is a lot less than dry cleaning, and depending on where exactly you live, dry cleaning can be an expensive line item, especially if you dry clean every shirt every time you wear it. While laundry is often a better and more expensive conscience option for shirts, dry cleaning is the best choice if you have nice business pants or suits in fine fabrics. The dry cleaning process gently removes oil and dirt from materials and fibers that do not react well to water and this can make your expensive work trousers last quite a long time.
Often it is best to simply ask a dry cleaner for their opinion on whether a particular garment is better suited for laundry. Your dry cleaner is an expert not only in reading and understanding the labels, but also in relying on gut instinct to determine the best treatment option in all kinds of situations.
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Whatever you decide, simple
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