How Do Dry Cleaners Clean Your Clothes?

Have you ever wondered why dry cleaning is called 'dry cleaning' when your garments get wet after they are immersed in a liquid solvent? It is due to the fact that they enter dry and come out dry. The term 'dry cleaning' is a little misleading for this cleansing process.

MeganCox
Created by MeganCox (User Generated Content*)User Generated Content is not posted by anyone affiliated with, or on behalf of, Playbuzz.com.
On Sep 21, 2017
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Dry Cleaners Nearby

Here is how it is done by dry cleaners nearby:

Step 1

After you handover your garments to your relied on cleaner, they tag your garments with something that will withstand the cleaning process and provide you a receipt. Some dry cleaners staple tags on your garment while others utilize plastic fasteners.

Step 2

The garments are then organized and arranged inning accordance with the kind of fabric, their color and the nature of stain. If your garments have difficult discolorations, the cleaners have to go through 'pre-wash' or 'spot cleaning' by hand.

Step 3

Then, they are sent to the dry cleaning device, which looks like a big washing machine. It can hold 60 to 80 pounds of garment. Here, a chemical solvent called 'Perc' is utilized instead of water. Detergents are added to help in removing spots. It is only after 30 minutes that the spin cycle starts where your garments are actually cleaned. After 40 to 50 minutes, the garments are exposed to heat to evaporate the chemical solvent.

Step 4

Your garments are dry now. The cleaners will look for any loose buttons or embellishments that might come off during the cleaning procedure. If there are any, they will fix them and send the garments for pushing. Normally the garments are pushed by a commercial press, but specific fragile items are pressed manually by hand with a small iron.

Step 5

New ID tags, matching the original ones, are attached to the garments. The cleaned garments are then held on a conveyor. Then, after you provide the receipt to the cleaners, they will give your garments back in the garment bags.

This is the basic dry cleaning process, to which there might be some modifications depending on the dry cleaners. There might be an addition of a couple of strategies for much better service.

Did you know?

Jean Baptiste Jolly discovered the chemical based dry cleaning process in the mid-19th century. You might be shocked to understand that this form of cleaning was found by a mishap. When Jolly's maid accidentally spilled kerosene on a table linen, he noticed that it became cleaner than in the past. That's when he thought about beginning a service to clean people's cloths.

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