https://twitter.com/dieworkwear/status/1783229903514841466
Let’s talk about how to find a good dry cleaner.
First, dry cleaning can be harsh on clothes, so it’s best to minimize how often you dry clean them. Suits, sport coats, and wool trousers don’t have to be dry cleaned often, but your frequency depends on your lifestyle (e.g., smoking, climate, etc).
You can minimize how often you need to dry clean by using a garment brush. Support jackets by their shoulder and brush down to knock out dirt, which can cut into fibers like tiny razors. I use Kent’s CC20 clothes brush, but their CP6 is also good.
The second thing is to always consult the garment tag. Some things can’t be wet-washed. Depending on the stain, you may also need a professional. Hence, this guide on how to find a good dry cleaner.
There are two types of cleaning businesses. The first is a dry store, where the store acts as a drop-off point for some remotely located central plants. For every central plant, there might be five to twenty of these “satellite†shops located throughout various neighborhoods.
Generally, dry stores are not that great. Their aim is to minimize costs and increase efficiency. If you see a very small shop with no machines behind the conveyor, and they’re charging $10 to clean a suit, your clothes are probably not getting that much consideration.
The second type of operation is a package plant, which cleans clothes on-site using their equipment. Such operations are often higher-end. They may identify and pre-treat stains, remove hardware before cleaning, and hand-press garments. This is Jeeves in NYC
IG jeeves_ny https://t.co/Mzv1W4gfLd
The reason why this is good is because certain materials, garment designs, and stains need special consideration. Oil-based stains are different from water-based stains. Depending on how you treat them, you may not be able to get them out. Bad cleaning can even set stains in!
In this video, you can see how Zach at Jeeves NYC considers a garment’s design before cleaning it. A dry store may not consider these things. Instead, they may send your item to an indiscriminate cleaning plant, which can result in damaged goods. https://t.co/2B9rNCRp5a
Some garments, such as bespoke suits and sport coats, are also made with a lot of shaping, which is created through hand-pressing. If such garments are put through a bad machine press, you can flatten lapels. A dry store is more likely to use a machine press than a package plant https://t.co/7WNw9IX1Eq
There are other elements of quality. Chlorinated dry cleaning solvents like perchloroethylene (aka Perc or Dowper) can be harmful to your clothes, the environment, and even your health. They’re the most common dry cleaning solvent, even tho they’ve been banned in some places.
Some low-end dry cleaners will even re-use their cleaning fluids, which means dirt from previous loads can be deposited. Ask your cleaner if they use freshly purified or freshly distilled fluids with every run.
You can see that finding the right dry cleaner is not straightforward. Much depends on various factors.
How much does your garment cost? How was it made? What is the type of stain? How much do you care about the garment? What are your local options?
How you approach a $50 silk blouse may be different from how you approach a $500 silk blouse. How you treat a $100 sport coat may be different from how you treat a sport coat once owned by your grandfather.
But the info above should give you an idea of the questions to ask to see if a specific cleaner is right for you:
-
Do you own your own equipment, or do you send stuff to another site?
-
Do you identify and pre-treat stains? How do you plan to treat this specific stain?
-
Do you press things by hand or by machine?
-
Do you use Perc? And do you use freshly purified or freshly distilled fluids with every run?
-
Do remove hardware from garments before cleaning them? Does my garment require special considerations?
Does every garment need such special consideration? No. Dress shirts can be pressed by machine without issue. Lower-end suits and sport coats may not benefit from a hand press, as they don’t have the construction to hold the shape.
Photo of Kingbridge Cleaners & Tailors in NYC
However, understanding the issues at hand allows you to limit your risk and choose the right cleaner for the job.
If you don’t have a high-end dry cleaner near you, Rave FabriCARE in Arizona takes mail-ins. They clean everything and do great work.
