When "Dry Clean Only" is a Suggestion, Not a Rule

I have always tried to stay away from anything that was labeled "Dry Clean Only", if it can't be thrown in the washer, I won't buy it. Aside from the expense of dry cleaning, there's the time of dropping off, picking up and waiting on your items to be cleaned.

But, after working at a small dry cleaning business for more than 2 years, I discovered that dry cleaning was nothing like I thought it was, and now "Dry Clean Only" labels don't scare me! Until then, I'd thought that dry cleaning was some "magical" way to clean certain types of material.

It wasn't something I really thought about, I just knew that it was something that had to be done professionally and therefore you couldn't do it at home! Of course, now retail kits are sold for dry cleaning at home using your own dryer.

But, do most items that are labeled "Dry Clean Only" really need to be dry cleaned? The answer is no, they don't! I was totally amazed at the items brought in that didn't actually get dry cleaned.

Now, I'd like to make it perfectly clear that I have only worked at one dry cleaning business and I'm not saying that all dry cleaners clean items in the same way we did. But, whether they do or not, with what I learned you can save hundreds of dollars on your cleaning.

For some items, dry cleaning is the best way to go, unless you want to do all these items by hand and hang or lay them to dry, anything that will shrink is best left to the cleaners.

Yearly gross sales for dry cleaning is over $8 billion dollars according to a article at http://t-cstates.com. With everyday rising costs of gasoline, food and shelter just to name a few things, dry cleaning is a expense that you can save lots of money on.

What can you ignore the "Dry Clean Only" label on? Well, just to name a few things - prom dresses, wedding dresses, lots of sweaters and most comforters and bed spreads can even be washed by machine.

Some items actually labeled for dry cleaning, probably shouldn't be dry cleaned! Why? Because the dry cleaning machine can reach very high temperatures. If you have a favorite dress, sweater or shirt with lots of sequins and beads, or material with a lot of nylon in it, these can actually melt during the dry cleaning process.

I was totally amazed at how much people paid to have prom dresses and wedding dresses cleaned, especially when we just put them in large net zipper bags and threw them in the large washer!

Some of these dresses were covered in sequins and beads, especially the wedding dresses, lots of which had the long beautiful trains. These types of dresses went thru the wash cycle with no problems at all.

Once they were done washing, we'd shake them out and hang them somewhere to dry and then all that was left was the pressing. If you're planning on trying this at home, I'd suggest you do the washing and then take it to the cleaners to be pressed.

Irons will virtually melt sequins and most beads on contact, so unless you own a really good hand held steamer for removing wrinkles, have these items pressed at the cleaners.

We charged anywhere from $25 to $35 to clean prom and wedding dresses and although pressing them is quite time consuming, that's a pretty high fee to throw something in the washer!

Prom season is just around the corner and with all the cost involved with proms, if you've opted to purchase a used dress, then this could save you quite a bit on
getting it cleaned and ready for that big night!

Another item that we washed in the machine more often than we dry cleaned is comforters. Like the dresses, these were just washed in the large washer and hung over racks to dry. Any wrinkles were removed with the hand held steamer, the price for cleaning comforters ran about the same as the dresses.

You can save even more money on your dry cleaning bill just by washing items at home. Many things like shirts, pants and even table cloths can easily be washed at home and then taken to the cleaners just for pressing.

I'm sure the prices vary at different cleaners, but it was almost a dollar cheaper to have a men's shirt pressed than it was to have one both cleaned and pressed! And, the savings was almost a dollar on other "press only" items.

Like I said, this is just my experience while working at one dry cleaning business. Other cleaners may indeed dry clean everything brought in for dry cleaning, they may only machine wash items that are labeled machine wash.

But, working at this cleaners through three prom seasons and many, many local weddings, I have learned that you can clean these dresses just as well at home and save lots of money.

Just make sure you use a net zipper bag to help protect them, cold water and put them on the gentle cycle. To be even more safer, you might want to stop by the
local laundry mat and wash them in the extra large washers so they have plenty of room to move around.

Saving money on all the necessary things in life may not always be a easy task, but with a little extra effort on your part the savings on your dry cleaning bills could be enormous!

Connie Corder
"Does Dry Clean Only Mean It HAS to be Dry Cleaned?"
Associated Content

Source:
Dry Cleaning Station
http://t-cstates.com/dry_cleaning.htm