New clients often complain
that they've had to spend an inordinate amount of time in the past
reironing their "professionally laundered" shirts. And they want to
know why.
The reason you're re-ironing your shirts at home is quite
simple:
Your cleaner is delivering a machine pressed laundered shirt or a
hand finished laundered shirt. Whereas you should be insisting on a
hand ironed laundered shirt.
Most ordinary cleaners bang your shirts out on a shirt
pressing machine at the rate of 40 to 50 per hour. They call that a
"machine pressed laundered shirt."
Other ordinary cleaners take that same machine pressed shirt and
"touch up" the major wrinkles with a hand iron. They call that a
"hand finished laundered shirt".
As far as I am concerned, it doesn't matter if it's a
machine pressed laundered shirt or a hand finished laundered shirt.
It's still bang and hang work.
How can you tell that you're getting bang and hang work?
Look for
- Wrinkles in the collars and cuffs
- Wrinkles in the pockets, pocket flaps and epaulets
- Wrinkles in the front and sleeve plackets
- Puckered side, sleeve and yolk seams
- Puckered joins between the body of the shirt and sleeves of the
shirt
- Puckered joins between the sleeves of the shirt and cuffs of
the shirt
- Wrinkled underarms
- Creased sleeves (often automatically done without the client
having been given the option of a rolled sleeve).
So ask for a hand ironed laundered shirt. But be careful: In all
probability your cleaner will deliver a machine pressed laundered
shirt or a hand finished laundered shirt ($1 to $2) and swear it's
a hand ironed laundered shirt ($6 to $14).
Does your cleaner bait and switch and then pocket the
difference?
How can I help you?