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Dry cleaning tips and advice

Submitted by Richard

Always check that your garment is suitable for dry-cleaning by checking the fabric care label. Do not rely on the dry-cleaner to reject an item that should not be dry-cleaned.

Dry-cleaning guarantees to remove all general grime and dirt, but may not remove some specific stains. If your clothes have a stain, always point it out in advance and tell the cleaner what it is, if you know. You may have to accept that they can only do their best.

Before you leave the shop with your cleaned garments, always check that they are in fact clean and that any particular stain that the dry-cleaner has agreed to remove has gone. If you have to remove packaging to do so, don't be put off. If the item still has a stain, ask them to do it again.

There will be some solvent smell initially in newly dry-cleaned clothes, but if your garment is damp or still has an excessive smell of solvent (or other resinous smell), complain and do not take it away. This is due to faulty processing, and the garment should be cleaned again.

Do not take a cleaned garment inside a closed car - the solvent fumes may make you unfit to drive. Open a window. When you get home, remove the packaging and hang your clean clothes up for a short while in a place where there is fresh air.

angela Drycleaner

Comments by: Angela Farrell from point cook victoria May 13, 2010

This advise is excellent I have taken a copy for my customers to read its seems easier than explaining everything all the time thanks

Reclamation time

Comments by: Omar's dry cleaners from New York May 10, 2010

If your garments still smell of chemical check your machine there could be issues like dry sensor,lint filter too old, recuperation you have to wait 24hrs before your next load so your carbon absorber is nice and cool

Drcleaning should not have a chemical smell

Comments by: S.Harland from Prahrna,Victoria,Australia Feb 18, 2009

Most of the information is correct, however, as i work at a drycleaner i can tell you from experience, any garment that smells of the solvent that we has not been dried properly and is therefore not dry. Sorry, you may say, not dry, aren't you drycleaning, we actually use a solvent and in a front loading machine, the garment is immersed in solvent, cleaned and then the solvent is extracted. If the smell exists it is because the solvent is not extracted properly. Some of our customers are at first surprised there is no smell in their clothes, it is because we charge more to spend more time to do the job properly. If your clothes smell, ask them to be redried, however i would suggest finding another drycleaner as if they are not completing a minor thing like keeping the garments in the machine until it has finished its job then what else are they not doing?