Are you fond of hiring dry cleaning services? You will note that these services can add up to significant household expenses in the long run. However, the good news is that you can readily cut down these costs by doing some dry cleaning at home. You can still try green dry cleaning.
You will realize that not all the garments with dry cleaning listed in the care instructions necessarily need professional dry cleaning services. As a result, you can readily freshen these fabrics at home on your own.
However, what comes to your mind when you hear the word dry cleaning? The reality of issues is that dry cleaning is not actually dry. Here, the clothes usually get wet just like they would if you were washing them using ordinary water, but this time, they get wet with Perchloroethylene.
Perchloroethylene, or what is commonly known as Perc is the cleaning and degreasing solvent that is used in dry cleaning clothes out there. These clothes are then cycled through large washing machines so that they can be clean.
Once you are able to know which clothes and stains are ideal for dry cleaning at home, you can actually dry clean them on your own seamlessly from the comfort of your home. Here are the essential steps you should follow when you want to dry clean your clothes at home:
Contents
1. Read the label
Before you start any form of cleaning, you should look at the label at the back of your clothes or on an inside seam and see the care instructions that come with your piece of cloth. If the label says ‘Dry Clean Only’, you should consider taking that piece of cloth to a dry cleaner. However, if you see ‘Dry Clean’, you can readily hand-wash it at home.
For the silk or woolen clothes, there is no need to take them to a dry cleaner. Here, you can consider hand-washing them.
2. Test a spot to see if you can wash it at home
Here, you should try to find a spot on the garment that cannot be seen easily. You can drip a few drops of water on this spot and then use a cotton swab to run the water across the surface of the garment.
After that, you can look at the cotton swab to see if any color has been removed in the process. If the color bleeds, you should take the cloth to the dry cleaner. However, if there is no bleeding, you can go ahead and hand-wash the clot at home.
3. Wash silk in cold water
You should fill the sink or the tub with cold water and a small amount of mild detergent. Remember, this is not a bathroom sink or kitchen sink, it is a laundry sink. Besides, it is advisable that you consider using silk detergent. Thereafter, you can gently hand-wash your silk garment in about 30 minutes. Remember that silk normally suffers if you expose it to water for longer periods. After that, you can dry the silk garment.
4.Clean the wool garment in cold water
One of the main challenges of washing wool at home is felting. This normally occurs when wool fibers get matted together when one is washing. To avert this problem, you should consider hand-washing wool garments gently in a tub of cold water.
Wool cleaners such as the Woolite can be used to clean cashmere and other wool garments. It is important that you avoid putting wool garments in the washing machines since the agitation of the machine can cause felting and make your garments to shrunken. Thereafter, you should lay out your wool garments flat for them to dry.
5. Wash your linen in cold water
For your linens, you can use a mild detergent in a tub of cold water and hand-wash them. After that, you can air-dry your linens. To avoid your linens getting wrinkles, you should press them after you wash them.
Besides hand-washing clothes that can be dry cleaned, you can use a machine to wash it. The following are the steps that you should follow:
1. Determine if you can machine wash your clothes
For instance, if a certain piece of clothing has a label saying that you should ‘dry clean’ them as opposed to ‘dry clean only’ and is made of materials such as nylon, cotton, polyester, or spandex, you can machine wash it.
Although you can hand-wash materials that are made of wool or silk, you can still machine-wash them. Forsophisticatedgarments such as those made of multiple fabrics, they can be dry cleaned. The embellished tops that have sequins can be difficult to hand-wash them. As such, they should machine- washed. Also, Rayon and viscose can be dry cleaned.
2. Put the clothes in a delicate bag
Here, you should turn the clothes inside out and then place them in a mesh bag that is mainly designed for washing delicate clothes. Thereafter, you can choose cold water when setting the machine washing items. Remember that warmer temperatures can make your clothes to shrunken in the long run.
3. Choose the shortest possible cycle.
You will realize that delicate fabrics such as silk do not benefit once you expose them to water for long. In this case, you should choose the shortest wash cycle.
4. Turn it to the gentlest cycle
If you have a machine washing at home, you will note that it has a wide range of options when it comes to the speed and force that they will use to wash your clothes. You can readily choose delicate to slow cycle depending on your needs. It is important that you avoid ‘regular’ and ‘permanent press’ cycles are they are not that gentle.
5. Remember to check your load mix
Ideally, you should wash silk with silk and wool with wool. You should not mix them together. Therefore, you should put all your delicate items in one land and then wash them separately.
6. Let your clothes to air dry
If you let your dryer to dry your clothes, chances are that they will shrink. Therefore, you should let them dry in the air by hanging them on a clothesline. For the woolen clothes, you should ensure that it lays flat so that it does not shrink. Also, you should air-dry your clothes away from hot areas as they can shrink more if exposed to excessive heat.
Conclusion
To avoid wasting more time, you should consider using a home dry cleaning machine. This will help minimize the amount of money used in dry cleaning. Also,hand-washing might not fully remove all the stubborn stains. Although home dry cleaning might not be as perfect as professional dry cleaning, it can still help make your clothes look cleaner and tidier. Also, it saves on costs that come with hiring professional dry cleaning services. Consider these ideas hen dry cleaning your clothes at home, and you will not regret it.