It’s a question that you’ve likely asked yourself on numerous occasions, but haven’t gone out of your way to answer… until now. We’re here to set the record straight and make the dry cleaning process a little less mysterious.
In the simplest of terms, dry cleaning is a process of cleaning clothes without the use of water. The absence of water in the process is where the name dry cleaning comes from (one mystery solved). Instead, dry cleaning uses non-water based chemical solvents to clean clothes.
In more complex terms, the dry cleaning process has quite a few steps to it: Inspection and Tagging, Pre-Spotting, The Dry Cleaning Process, Post Spotting, Finishing Touches.
Here are what these steps entail:
Inspection and Tagging Process: This is one of the parts that you’re likely most familiar with. You take your garment into the cleaner’s, and the dry cleaner creates a tag for your item. This is also when your clothes are examined for any stains, missing buttons, tears, etc.
Pre-spotting: Here is where things begin to get a little hazier for the average dry cleaning customer. Once we’ve dropped off our garments, cleaners will typically go through a pre-spotting process where they’ll apply a chemical solvent, vacuum, or heat to stains on your garment, which helps to remove the stain during the actual dry cleaning process.
The Dry Cleaning Process: This is the part we never see. Once your clothes have been pre-spotted, your clothes are placed into a machine and submerged into a non-water based solvent. The clothes are then rotated in a perforated cylinder where the cleaning solvent is released in a steady amount throughout the entire process. From there, the machine rapidly spins the clothes to get rid of any excess solvent and releases warm air. Your clothes emerge completely dry.
Post-spotting: Here your cleaner will inspect your clothes for any remaining stains and residue and remove them using the same process they did in the pre-spotting stage.
Finishing: Once your clothes have gone through the complete dry cleaning process, they are pressed, steamed, or ironed for presentation. This is the part we love because it makes our clothes look and feel amazing.
