We’ve always wondered how a cleaning method can ever be dry and how dry cleaning even works to banish stubborn stains and soiling from our clothes.
Now that we have sources to cherry pick this knowledge from, we’ve now moved to a much adventurous interest. We now want to know whether or not we can actually realize the dry cleaning process at home.
Truth is however, you wont be able to dry clean at home as the dry cleaning machine and products aren’t readily available to buy at the regular grocery store, and the methods and techniques used are simply too intense and arduous for you to cope with at home.
Dry cleaning is a much more complicated process than regular washing and that is why it’s a business best left to those who have a perfect mastery of it.
Below you’ll get a much comprehensive insight on why you cannot dry clean garments at home, and also the closest you can ever get to the dry cleaning experience at home.
It’s a sophisticated process, not easily attainable at home!
Dry cleaning isn’t a matter of tossing dirty clothes and garments into a machine and running cleaners through them to extract soiling. There’s more to dry cleaning than that.
Dry cleaning is a business, and a very sophisticated one for that matter. It involves specialized machinery and equipment, special products and tools, carefully monitored processes and methods, several departments that handle different parts of laundry cleaning, and also experts doing the various things that you do best. This is how your clothes are able to get back to you from the dry cleaners as polished as ever.
There is absolutely no way that you can ever match this kind of sophistication at home. The machines and the technology won’t readily be available to you, nor would you have the knowledge of judging how best to treat and wash clothes (in a single or multiple reads) the way technologists at the dry cleaners do.
They are trained professionals that know exactly what they do, and aside from that, the years of experience they’re garnered from the field helps them in their day to day decisions too. That’s why they are able to occasionally go against the instructions on your fabric care label without ruining your clothes.
Another thing is that, dry clean uses special solvent to clean clothes, these solvents aren’t typically available to the general public.
There is fear that these products can cause harm when released into the environment which is why they are carefully contained after use (in the dry cleaners) and disposed of properly.
Making such kinds of chemicals available to the regular home user, would immediately blow up the query of disregard to the health of the environment on the manufacturers end, as they would know that homeowners would clearly dish out these remnants into the environment.
So at the end of the day, it’s just impossible to achieve dry cleaning at home without turning your home into a full-fledged dry-cleaning business (which includes getting a registration number).
You can, however, at home, get very close to the dry cleaning experience through products that try to give you such experiences. We’ll touch on a very popular product in a moment.
The closest you can ever get to dry cleaning at home
Professional cleaning (which includes dry cleaning) is actually much more efficient than anything you can ever achieve at home, either through the washer or using your hands.
Dry cleaning utilizes the blow and friction technique as efficiently as olden days cleaning — which strikes clothes against a hard surface with ridges, and then gently scrubs them against this surface to release dirt.
How modern cleaning does it, is by slapping clothes against the walls of the washer drum using centrifugal force.
Immediately after, the garments are spinned to promote friction which aids removal of stains and soiling. The way dry cleaning does is almost as efficient as the rudimentary method centuries back.
Your washer at home on the other hand, does not utilize this technique as efficiently as the dry cleaning machine, so also hand washing.
And that is why you find dry cleaning way much superior than anything you can ever achieve at home.
As far as dry cleaning experience at home is concerned, there are a few products you can use to achieve that. One popular one is Dryel.
Dryel
Dryel is a technique of washing clothes that does not depend on using water or laundry detergent. It’s a steam cleaning method that is mostly targeted to be used on clothes having the “dry clean only” or “dry clean” tag and also with clothes that are just too delicate to be washed by hand or machine.
So basically, Dryel uses a cloth which releases “cleaning steam” when activated by heat. And where best provides heat during laundry at home? The dryer!
So, the way it works is that you pack the dirty clothes together with the cleaning cloth in a cleaning bag, and then put it inside the dryer.
The heat from the dryer will activate the cleaning cloth and cause it to release steam, this steam contains clean agents which helps remove stain and soiling.
The cleaning bag also serves another function, actually, two. First is that it ensures the right conditions are met and maintained for proper working of the process, and secondly, it serves as the medium for venting out vapor that collects on the inside.
With Dryel however, you want to make sure you’re cleaning clothes that are not heavily soiled otherwise it may not work.
Dryer, isn’t the only product you can use to achieve the “dry cleaning” dream at home.
There are other products out there that offer different technologies and techniques which differ from normal washing. Feel free to try them out and see what works best for your laundry.
What about “dry clean only clothes”, can you wash them at home?
All clothes tagged with the dry clean only tag, should be taken to the dry cleaners for cleaning. This is because they may have a certain type of composition that does not fare well under machine washing at home, or even handwashing.
It could be that the items have embellishments on them that can only be protected by the gentle process of dry cleaning. And cleaning them in the washer or by hand might ruin them!
On the other hand, you may notice that your clothes have a “dry clean” tag on them instead of “dry clean only”. These two mean different things and how you interpret the phrase can have a significant impact on your spending.
The “Dry clean” tag means that you have the option of dry cleaning, should you ever consider doing that, but the process is not really a necessity. You are free to machine wash “on delicate” by stuffing the clothes in a mesh bag. And you’re also free to wash the clothes by hand.
“Dry clean only”, on the other hand, is a strict warning that must be adhered to otherwise you risk ruining your fabric.
Another thing you want to bear at the back of your mind when dealing with clothes having these kinds of tags is stain.
Whenever you have a clothing label that says “dry clean”, or “dry clean only”, if it has stains on it, always take it to the dry cleaners and avoid DIY procedures that may end up damaging the fabric.
At the dry cleaners, your clothes, typically, would first be treated for stained spots before they are washed. And you can only marvel at how efficient that spot cleaning is.
How to minimize your trip to the dry cleaners
One easy tip you can use to minimize your trip to the dry cleaners is to make sure you give your clothes some breathing space after you’ve pulled them off.
This will help freshen them up a bit.
You can also use laundry sanitizers on your fabric to kill odour causing bacteria which make clothes smell terrible. When using laundry sanitizers, opt for ones that have fragrance in their composition.
Before using laundry sanitizers also, ensure to do a quick spot test in an inconspicuous area of the fabric to ensure that it is color fast to the laundry sanitizer.
Another option to freshen up your clothes is steaming. This works great and also helps get rid of smells on your clothes that can make you uncomfortable in gatherings.
Final Thoughts
Dry cleaning at home is outright impossible. The dry cleaning process is quite sophisticated and cannot be mimicked at home.
If you wish to get something close to a dry clean experience at home however, there are many products out there that can help with that. One such product is Dryel which uses steam cleaning to achieve laundry objectives.
