If you’ve heard of dry cleaning before, you must have wondered what exactly it is and how it does work. Most people tend to mistake dry cleaning for laundry cleaning when there is a major difference between the two.
Dry cleaning can be said to be similar to home laundering such that it removes your clothe stain while cleaning out your clothes, and it is also different from home laundry such that it does not use soap and water, but uses a liquid solvent to clean your clothes.
This liquid solvent that is used to clean your clothes can be said to remove any tough stains and transform your clothes to look brand new again.
To effectively understand dry cleaning, you need to understand how the process works and what each step applied seeks to achieve on your clothes, garment, or fabrics.
How the Dry-Cleaning Process Works
- Number Tagging
The first thing a dry cleaner does when he receives your clothes is to make sure it is tagged with a specific and unique number to help identify them easily. This process saves the dry cleaner lots of headaches and trouble incurred from misplacing a customer’s clothes or giving a customer a different item entirely.
- Inspection and Stain Prep.
Each item is visually examined, and any stains are noted and, if necessary, pre-treated. It is important to note that pre-treatment is carried out using unique chemicals designed for particular stains and fabric types.
Any decorations or buttons are now protected from deterioration throughout the dry-cleaning process by being covered with a soft cloth. Even buttons and embellishments might be taken off by some dry cleaners as an extra layer of precaution.
- Dry Cleaning Proper
A dry-cleaning machine is used to clean the stained clothing. The preferred organic solvent is injected into the machine while the garment is gently stirred. If your dry cleaner utilizes water, water is pumped into the machine as the garment is being stirred.
The machine used for dry cleaning can be said to be larger than your conventional washing machine which is usually found at home, but it works on the same basic principle of spinning.
However, the dry-cleaning machine features better temperature control and can spin considerably more slowly.
- An extra Inspection
The clothes are checked once again to ensure that all stains have been eliminated after dry cleaning. All buttons, decorations, and seams are also checked to make sure they are still in good condition, and every decoration and button that was taken off during the preliminary inspection stage is now put back on.
- Finishing Measures
After proper dry cleaning has been carried out, the dry cleaner will now press, iron, or steam each item of clothing to remove creases. Alternatively, a dry cleaner can decide to use a form finisher to straighten out the cloth.
Form finishers are devices that use air or steam to iron a garment while it is being worn. It gives the dry-cleaned garment a very smooth finish. After this process, a final inspection is done on the clothes before it is being sent back to their owner.