Dear Dish on Dry Cleaning
Dear Dish:
When clothing says "Dry Clean Only", does it really mean dry clean only? Can't one get away with washing it in cold, and then airdrying it? As a lazy person who doesn't want to dry clean anything, general guidelines would be good. I mean, what can the dry cleaners possible do that commoners can't? Do they take the dry cleaning to some miraculous place in the sky? Is it a mass conspiracy and they throw it in a washer and dryer in the back? What is your opinion Dishing with Trish?
Dear Loyal Fan:
Lucky for you, I was forced to take many a textiles course as part of my science degree in order to make me well rounded.
The first thing to do when dealing with "dry clean only" clothing is to check the tag. Find out what the item is made of.
Do not under any circumstances wash anything made of rayon or a rayon blend. Water attracts to the fibres in rayon and you will end up with a horrible crinkly mess when you used to have a beautiful shirt. Trust me on this one. Don't do it!
I have handwashed silks. I just reshape the item before lying it flat to dry. All of my wool sweaters get thrown in the washer on delicate in COLD water. Again, reshape and lay flat to dry.
Any expensive items that say "dry clean only", get dry cleaned just to be on the safe side. For instance, it might be possible to wash my wool coat, but I don't want to find out the hard way that it is not. In that sort of situation, I just suck it up and spend the money on dry cleaning.
As for whether or not the dry cleaners are part of a mass conspiracy, of course they are. If you ever suspect a conspiracy, chances are it is true fact. Wikipedia can enlighten us on what the dry cleaners tell the masses that they really do behind the scenes.
With regard to your comment about commoners, I suggest you listen to William Shatner's version of Common People. It has nothing to do with dry cleaning, but is a fabulous song nonetheless.
Dish
posted by Dish @ 4:47 PM
2 Comments:
Rayon, eh? This is very good to know. Two thumbs up to the Dish.
ditto on the thumbs!
I had a lovely brown wool sweater that my darling hubby threw into the dryer instead of laying flat to dry. Not only did it shrink but it somehow changed colour and now looks like, to quote James: "vomit". You can tell he felt really bad ha?
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