How Often Should Clothes Be Dry Cleaned?
Dry cleaning is a process that uses a chemical solvent to get rid of stubborn stains and dirt on your clothes. It is usually recommended for expensive or delicate fabrics. But how often should you give your clothes to be dry cleaned? That’s what we’ll discuss here.
The occasion
The frequency of sending your clothes to the dry cleaners depends upon the occasion on which you’ve worn your clothes, the way in which you used them, and the condition in which you took them off. In general, with ordinary washing of clothes, frequent washing causes your clothes to lose color, fray, and go out of shape. These damages are ones we can bear as far as our everyday wear is concerned, but not damages to our expensive or delicate fabrics. Hence, keep track of the occasion on which you’ve worn your expensive clothes and send them to be dry cleaned accordingly.
Manufacturer’s label
Check the label attached to your clothes. If the label says “Dry clean only,” then do follow that instruction precisely. If it says “Dry cleaning recommended,” take that as an instruction to dry clean only. If it says “Dry cleaning optional,” then you may decide to wash the clothes carefully at home; but it still makes better sense to spend a few extra bucks and get them professionally dry cleaned.
After season change.
Change of season should be a routine time to send your clothes to be dry cleaned. White or colored linens, jackets, and waistcoats that you’ve worn over the summer need to be dry cleaned. After autumn and winter, all those semi-heavy and heavy jackets and overcoats definitely need to be dry cleaned. These include the down jackets with polyester outers.
After a party
This depends on how raucous or staid the party was. If you’ve done a lot of dancing and stomping around, you may want to send the clothes you wore straight to the dry cleaners. Dancing causes particularly the ends of trousers and gowns to accumulate dirt from the dance floor. But if it was a relatively quiet event, you may choose to have your clothes dry cleaned after wearing them a couple of times more.
Crushed clothes.
Clothes that have suffered quite a bit of banging and have become crushed, as a result, are best sent to the dry cleaners immediately. Dirt stains tend to accumulate in the creases and need to be removed as soon as possible.
After travel.
Travel takes a heavy toll on clothes. There are the clothes you’ve worn during a long flight, and the clothes you’ve packed in your suitcase for the stay overseas, or for the local holiday at the beach or in the hills. You’ll notice that the lap area gets the dirtiest because that’s where we tend to rest our sweaty elbows and palms most of the time. Then there are collars and cuffs, both of which get dirty quite soon. If you’ve been traveling in and out of your hotel room, you won’t get the opportunity of getting your clothes laundered, let alone dry cleaned; so dry cleaning is the first thing you’ll need to do when you return home.
General frequency
In general, you should dry clean garments that you wear close to your skin–such as shirts–after single wear; trousers and slacks after about three years; and jackets and overcoats after several years. The thing to do is watch your clothes for stains, dirt marks, and crushed appearance; and use your judgment about when to next send them to be dry cleaned.
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