Finding a Good Dry Cleaner - YouLookFab Forum

Hi All!

Before YLF, I always opted to wear machine wash only clothing. I've recently picked up a few lovely silk blouses, and now I need 2 of them cleaned. I'm sort of scared though because I've heard horror stories of cleaners ruining a garment one way or another. Are there any precautions I can take to minimize the possibility of something like this?

There is a cleaner right down the road (Rick's Cleaners for any Austinites out there), which one "Best Cleaners" more than a few times in the local paper's city wide poll. Is this a good judge to go by? Unfortunately, with me being a student, I don't know anyone else who wears clothing that needs to be dry cleaned, so I can't get a recommendation (unless you know of a great place up North, Patience).

I also have a question for Angie about AF blouses. When I bought mine, the salesperson told me that Anne Fontaine herself doesn't recommend getting items cleaned because the chemicals will turn them yellow over time. They even sell laundry bags at AF boutiques so you can machine wash them. Are you going to get yours dry cleaned or hand wash them? I recently picked up the Carmelia blouse in white and I'd be heartbroken if it eventually turned yellow from chemicals. Thank you!

17 years ago

Maya

Veteran

What about those home dry cleaning kits? In my experience they don't do so well at removing stains, but they work just fine at freshening things up.

I think the poll is probably a good way to go. Think of how many people would have had to recommend it for it to get such a high rating. Perhaps take something that isn't so expensive and dear to you for a test drive and see how the service is.

That's why I don't get too many blousy items...it's just not student friendly. I definitely plan to invest in a couple of gorgeous blouses when I get my first design job, so I can show up for presentations looking sharp.

Ana

(website)

Thanks Maya!

I'm sort of afraid to do the home dry cleaning thing on silk, although I have done it for rayon stuff and it does work great. One of my items does just need freshening up, the other one has some marks on it that need to be removed. I think I will try the cleaner up the street and take my polka dot blouse, which I love but if it gets ruined I could still possibly order another one.

shiny

I can't remember the last time I went to the dry cleaners. I use the home dry cleaning kits, or I hand-wash. With the kits, I've found that you can split the cloth in half and make it go twice as far, and also reduce the chance that some of the cloth chemicals will leave annoying stains (that do come out, but mean you have to re-do the load a second time).

If it is a white cotton or linen blouse, I'd definetly hand-wash and allow to dry outside in the sunlight because the sunlight will brighten the garment.

Cashmere is definetly a hand-wash item. Be careful to re-block it so it dries in the right shape.

Silk is trickier.... I would NOT hand-wash silk; some silks will shrink. I would probably take a silk blouse to the dry cleaners.

Most things simply do not need to be washed all that often. Esp if you wear a cami underneath - wash the cami instead since it was closest to your body.

I hang my garments back up and allow them to air out between wears. I can wear a top several times before it needs cleaning. I think we've been kinda trained to think clothes need to be washed after every wear, and it's just not true, unless you are bike-commuting in your good clothes or somehow working up a major sweat in them!

Another exception might be if you wear a lot of perfume (which is why I don't wear perfume) or if you smoke (which, since quitting smoking, means I don't need to use the home dry cleaning kits to "refresh" as much anymore!)

Thanks for the tips, Shiny! I usually try to wear thing 2-3 times before I wash them unless they get bad, especially silk blouses and things that need special cleaning. I hang things up and that usually does the trick. These two blouses definitely need to be cleaned at this point though because they have some spots on them that need to be removed (which I'm afraid to do myself). I wore the coral one out and it was super hot and so I perspired a lot. But, I've switched to that Certain Dry deodorant Angie recommended on her blog a few weeks ago, and it's amazing! Hopefully this will help cut down on "freshening" trips to the cleaners.

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