How to Care for Your Clothing Series: Dry Cleaning Do's and Don'ts

Common questions I regularly hear from Hendricks Park clients are "how should I wash this?" ..."does this need to be dry cleaned?"..."how can I prevent wrinkles?" and "will this shrink a lot?"  This week, I will offer my best answers to these questions and give you recommendations to help your clothing look it's best.

Dry Cleaning

If you take or send out your clothing to a professional cleaner, keep in mind that not everything needs to be dry cleaned.  Men often assume their dress shirts need to be dry cleaned when in fact, most dress shirts are made of cotton and can be laundered in water instead of chemical solvents that are used in the dry cleaning process.  These solvents are corrosive and for men who take their shirts to the dry cleaners weekly, the dress shirts literally disintegrate in a short time before your eyes. 

Rather than wear lower quality dress shirts that don't look and fit as well (because you have to replace them so often due to the disintegration factor), I recommend you ask the cleaner to simply launder them for you; NOT dry clean.  They will wash them in a regular washing machine and then press them for you so they are perfectly ironed with no effort on your part (except the bill).  If you want to save money and don't mind doing your own laundry; wash your shirts at home and then take them to the dry cleaner to be pressed. Regardless, professional laundering is usually less expensive than dry cleaning.

What do you need to dry clean? 

Anything made of wool (including cashmere), silk or linen (or a blend of these fibers) usually comes with a "Dry Clean Only" label.  All three of these fibers tend to shrink when they come in contact with water or more importantly when agitated or spun in a washer and dryer.  For men, I would recommend that most clothing containing these fibers should be dry cleaned.

Anything highly structured, such as a suit, jacket or sport coat should be dry cleaned.

Any clothing that you love the feel (or hand) of, especially slacks or trousers, you may want to dry clean.  Water may affect the hand of the fiber and you may not have the luxuriously butter-like feeling after it's been washed in water. 

Anything made of leather, suede or animal skin should usually be dry cleaned.

How often do you need to dry clean?

Suits and jackets usually don't need to be dry cleaned until they become soiled (by food, mud, etc.) or if they smell bad (smoke, perspiration, etc.).  For you tidy guys, this may mean you only dry clean your suits and sport coats once or twice a year.

Slacks and trousers should be dry cleaned every four or five wearings or when they become soiled. 

ALWAYS dry clean your suit together, meaning the jacket and suit pants; even if only one of the pieces needs cleaning.  You want the suit to perfectly match so you must dry clean them together so inevitable fading is done in tandem and unnoticeable.

Do home dry cleaning kits work?

Yes, they work to some degree (you use a stain remover on any obvious stains and then essentially steam and deodorize in your dryer).  However, in my opinion, it's more work than it's worth. I don't think they are as clean as they could be and I prefer to send my dry clean-ables out to the professionals because I don't think I save that much money on a home kit when I factor in my time.

As a risk taker, I have thrown pretty much every type of clothing and fabric in the washing machine to see what happens (mostly out of curiosity and laziness).  One thing I have learned...wool of any kind; don't ever mess with it.  It has a mind of it's own and it will literally shrink down to child size and become thick and tough if you don't respect it.  Most animal based fibers prefer to be dry cleaned or at least hand washed if they aren't water sensitive.  Imagine if you put our hair in the washing machine and then dried it in the dryer.  What a tangled, awful mess!  Respect your wool garments all the way to the dry cleaners.

-Lisa Bruckner, Hendricks Park

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