Dry Cleaning: A Man's-Eye View
March 06, 2011, By Tom McNulty 0 comments
Dry cleaning is a great thing for men. Why? Because doing the laundry - washing all sorts of different colors and fabrics, pressing slacks and shirts, hanging them on hangers or folding them neatly into boxes - is not.
The labels in your clothes will tell you loud and clear which pieces are “Dry Clean Only.” Dry cleaning is more expensive than laundering stuff yourself, but it has its advantages. For instance, did you ever try to run a sport coat through the washer? Doesn't work well.
Also, when you dry clean clothes, colors don't run or fade, garments don't shrink up into little doll-clothes ... that kind of thing. Dry cleaning (and the professional laundering most dry cleaners provide) will also guarantee that your pants, shirts, sport-coats, suits - hell, everything - will always come back spotless and perfectly pressed, which is extremely difficult and time-consuming to accomplish on your own. I used to occasionally try to iron pleated slacks, and I am damned glad pleats went out of style because THAT was difficult!
Some dry-cleaning tips for guys:
- You may want to order a “press only” if you’re just dealing with a clean-but-wrinkled pair of pants or a sportcoat.
- DON'T have a garment “pressed only” if it’s soiled because the pressing may, for example, turn invisible stains on white or light garments into a light brown, and these stains may well become “set for life" - and not in a good way, like the kind of "set for life" one would be if one signed a $10 million contract to play second base for the Cardinals. Is that a run-on sentence? Oh well, the meaning is clear.
- If you have a suit or another outfit that consists of two or more matching pieces, clean them both at the same time. Even though fading is minimal with dry cleaning, slight color changes can occur.
Keep reading for more tips and what you should expect in quality.
