Jason English
On Dry Cleaning
by Jason English - May 18, 2007 - 9:56 AM

dry_clean.jpgMy dry cleaner seemed uncharacteristically cheerful Wednesday morning. She engaged me in small talk. The weather, the weekend, the usual stuff. For the first time, I believed the pre-printed “We (Heart) Our Customers” message attached to the hangers. There would never be a better chance to ask the million-dollar question.

“So, how does dry cleaning really work?”

The cheerfulness subsided. I had crossed the line. All of a sudden – despite multiple signs promising next-day service – my garments wouldn’t be ready until the middle of next week. Whatever they do, they were going to take their sweet ass time doing it. I know this: she will ignore my choice of starch.

Lucky for me, the dark industry secrets have already been exposed. The good people at HowStuffWorks – specifically Nate Marks and Debra Luhring – crawled into the shady underbelly of the dry cleaning world and filed a full report.

The Process
When you drop your clothes off at the cleaners, the employees follow a pattern that holds true at just about any dry-cleaning operation running today. Your clothes go through the following steps:

1. Tagging and inspection – Some method, whether it is small paper tags or little labels written on a shirt collar, is used to identify your clothes so they don’t get mixed up with everyone else’s. Clothes are also examined for missing buttons, tears, etc. that the dry cleaner might get blamed for otherwise.

2. Pre-treatment – The cleaner looks for stains on your clothes and treats them to make removal easier and more complete.

3. Dry cleaning – The clothes are put in a machine and cleaned with a solvent.

4. Post-spotting – Any lingering stains are removed.

5. Finishing – This includes pressing, folding, packaging and other finishing touches.

That’s just the outline.  Let me send you over to Howstuffworks for the full explanation.

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Comments (12)

  1. I worked in a dry cleaner’s during high school and that explanation is accurate. The worst part was checking people’s pants pockets for anything they forgot to take out. Kleenexes were the worst I found.

    posted by afan on 5-18-2007 at 2:44 pm

  2. I’ve heard the solvents used are pretty toxic.

    posted by Bassman on 5-19-2007 at 7:48 am

  3. Here’s an interesting personal story about dry cleaning:

    My family has been doing our dry cleaning at a small dry cleaner in our neighborhood for the past six years, when we moved to town. The tiny Asian woman who owns the shop also owns the same green Plymouth Voyager minivan as my family; one day, while my sister and I sat in the car, my mom went in to retrieve the dry cleaning. Exiting the shop, she walked over to the dry cleaner’s car, thinking it was ours, and opened the door. She actually hung our newly retrieved dry cleaning inside the owner’s van and tried to put the key in the ignition, before realizing it was the wrong car. All the while, my sister and I were laughing and gesturing wildly, as was the shopowner. Realizing her mistake, my mother returned to our car in embarassment; from that day on, the shopowner referred to my mother as “Same Van Lady” – and to this day, my mother never says she is doing the dry cleaning; rather, she is going to “Same Van Lady.”

    posted by Abi on 5-19-2007 at 2:55 pm

  4. I wonder how the solvent compares to the ‘at home’ dry-cleaning-in-your-dryer kits… my mom lives by those things.

    I just refuse to buy anything that has to be dry cleaned… or ironed…

    posted by Tru on 5-21-2007 at 11:16 am

  5. When people at the dry cleaner tell customers to have some specific clothes dry cleaned, always listen to them. Some people think that owners just want to charge customers more money, but the truth is that some fabrics need to be dry cleaned although the label says it’s okay to machine-wash.

    posted by moratorium on 6-3-2007 at 6:46 pm

  6. I also work at a dry cleaner (in L.A.) and I agree that forgotten Kleenex in the pocket is the absolute worst! :-(

    posted by Los Angeles Dry Cleaner on 1-8-2008 at 7:32 pm

  7. some guy claims to be making 50k a month from his website http://www.paolettiscleaners.com does anyone know of this guy?

    posted by eddie on 9-27-2008 at 9:41 am

  8. Tru- then how do you find things to wear to work?

    posted by Megan on 1-11-2011 at 11:01 am

  9. Personally, I only use the home dry cleaning stuff to remove odors when the item doesn’t really need cleaned. According to my former SIL, the stuff is (or at least when she was younger was) very toxic. Her sister accidentally got it in her eyes as a child at their family owned dry cleaner and her mom essentially submersed her head in water to clean them out right away.

    posted by Hyacinth on 1-11-2011 at 11:50 am

  10. @Megan – maybe Tru doesn’t have a job where he needs to dress up. I work in a very laid back office where we can wear jeans and sweatshirts everyday.

    posted by Katie Rose on 1-11-2011 at 12:13 pm

  11. I worked at a dry cleaners in high school. Tagging stuff took so long! It was always really hot during the summer, because we did all our cleaning in house.

    posted by Meg on 1-11-2011 at 12:23 pm

  12. I loved working at a cleaners. We had some big accounts, for instance one time we were the back up for Angels dry cleaning. So we had the entire squad’s OFFICIAL jerseys on site. Photos were taken of me in them lol.

    Also, we had some cops who came in and got their drycleaning. Mace is really fun in a hot closed environment lol.

    Oh yeah and the whole time I worked there I never once had to buy a lighter. :)

    posted by xanderjones on 1-11-2011 at 6:27 pm

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