Dry cleaning may remove and may also fail to
remove the odors in your clothes. This will
depend on whether you will clean your clothes or
you will take them to a dry cleaning specialist
to do the cleaning. The ability of the dry
cleaning process to remove the odors depends on
the way the dry cleaning specialist conducts the
activity. A dry cleaner uses no water in the
cleaning. Instead a dry cleaning specialist will
use a series of chemicals designed to eliminate
the particulate matter. The main aim of using a
dry cleaner is to eliminate any possibility of
fabric damage from water usage. You can use dry
cleaning to clean any type of garment.
The major problem of using dry cleaning is that
it is not an effective way of removing odors
from fabrics. One of the reasons why dry
cleaning fails in the operation is that odors
are compounds based on oils and fats and any
process can not easily remove them. You should
avoid taking your clothes for cleaning to any
dry cleaner as you may still get the smell of
sweat even as the clothes look visibly cleaned.
How should I reduce the problem?
There are several things you can do to reduce
odors occurring even after cleaning. One of them
is to have the clothes cleaned by a highly
experienced cleaner. The specialists are more
specific on the types of cleaning agents they
will use some of which are very effective in the
odor removal. Working with such cleaners, you
will always wear clothes, which are clean and
also free from odors like sweat.
What should I do to remove the smell?
. Return the clothes to the dry cleaner
The smell you may experience may be a smell from
the solvent they used to clean the cloth
commonly known as perc. If the machine fails to
work properly the clothes will have that musty
smell to them. If the machine functions properly
the cloth will not have any smell. You should
take the cloth back to the dry cleaner for a
second cleaning.
. Using baking soda
If you dry clean the clothes at home and still
experience the smell, you should take the
plastic bag that came with the dry cleaner and
tie at the top around the hanger to ensure that
no air will escape. Then fill a sock with some
baking soda and tie at the end. Place this sock
at the bottom of the bag and tie a knot tight at
the bottom of the dry cleaning bag. You should
leave the bag to remain like that for at least
five days. Baking soda will absorb the odor or
neutralize it.
Benefits of professional dry cleaning
. Alterations
Professional dry cleaners work as full service
cloth care specialists and therefore offer
alteration as one service in addition to cloth
cleaning.
. Buttons repair
They will repair any loose button and sew on
some new ones if necessary.
. More convenient
You will only have to drop your clothes for
cleaning and then pick them up. The dry cleaner
will take care of the rest and therefore you
will no need to spend time doing laundry and
ironing.
. Dry cleaning process is efficient
The dry cleaning process uses some fluids to
remove stains and soils from the fabrics. Dry
cleaning also has the ability to dissolve oil or
even grease an advantage that you will not get
through ordinary cleaning with the use of water.
Some natural fibers like silk and wool will look
beautiful when dry clean but will eventually
shrink loose color after washing for a long time
with water. Synthetic fibers like polyesters
will also respond well to dry cleaning process
as it completely removes any oily stains which
you can hardly remove through hard washing. The
dry cleaning specialist will try to change a
cloth to like- a -new condition using
precautions to prevent loss of color, shrinkage,
and change of finish or texture.
. Expertise
A dry cleaning specialist will have the adequate
knowledge and experience to clean your clothes
of any fashion or fabric. You will have no need
of cleaning the clothes yourself or invest in a
home dry cleaning kit.
. Finishing
Dry cleaning experts will have special pressing
equipments. The professional finishing will give
your garments wrinkle free and like new
appearance. Furthermore, after taking your
clothes to the dry cleaner, you will not need to
spend any time standing over an ironing board
with an ironing box.
. Garment storage
If you have many clothes but with inadequate
storage space, you can benefit from the storage
services offered by dry cleaning specialists.
They will store the garments in a vault, which
will offer the clothes protection from insects,
fire, burglary or mildew damage. Initially dry
cleaners would store furs but today they also
store household items and woolens.
. Extends the life of the garment
Some people may have a belief that frequent
cleaning will damage a garment although this is
not true. Expert cleaning will extend the life
of the garment through proper removal of soils
and stains.
. Reduce yellowing
Frequent cleaning will remove stain which if
left can cause yellowing as a result of
oxidation of the fabric. High exposure of the
garment to heat and passage of time may cause
stains from beverages, food, and any other oily
product that can oxidize the garment and turn it
brown or yellow. After the stains have turned
yellow or brown they are more difficult to
remove and many times a dry cleaner will not
remove them.
. Wet cleaning
Cleaners may choose wet cleaning which is
gentler to process the more sensitive textiles
like rayon, silk, wool, and linen. Wet cleaning
gives dry cleaners more options in processing
items which has soils, but water usage would
make the cleaning efficient. For example some
clothes like the wedding gowns may have sequins
or plastic beads, which may easily discolour in
dry cleaning, but will perform well in wet
cleaning. Furthermore, items with a large amount
of water soluble stains will do well in wet
cleaning.
. Stain removal
Dry cleaners will use special techniques and
some special chemicals to remove any stain.
There are two major categories of stains: water
soluble stains and solvent soluble stains.
Different stains will need different removal
procedures and it will depend on the type of
training the expert has gained.
