Have
you noticed that the collars of your white shirts have yellowed and
that certain parts of the collars of your dark colored shirts look
darker than the rest of the shirt?
Here's why ...
Your collars have yellowed and look darker because ordinary dry
cleaners merely toss your shirts into a shirt washer. And hope that
a combination of hot water and harsh, caustic, industrial grade
detergents will miraculously dissolve the body oils in the collar
(or elsewhere on the shirt).
Sometimes this works. Mostly it doesn't.
At a
true quality cleaner, they'll first soak your fine
shirts in an odorless, dermatologically friendly, fabric gentle dry
cleaning fluid. Before your shirts even see the inside of a
shirt washer.
And why do they do this? Because this is the only way to safely
and gently dissolve oil-based stains such as body oil, oily creams
and oily lotions, and other grease deposits. Without resorting to
scrubbing your collars and cuffs with hard-bristled brushes and
"collar-cuff solution".
This is also the only way to ensure that, when your shirt is
finally pressed (
hopefully by hand and not by machine), those body oils,
creams and lotions, and grease deposits don't transform or oxidize
through heat into difficult-to-remove yellow stains.
And the dry clean fluid a true quality cleaner should use? The
same type of fluid --
siloxane -- that they might use for "dry clean only"
bespoke, made-to-measure, designer, high fashion, specialty and
couture garments.
Fact is, siloxane dry clean fluid is so gentle it's been used
for decades as a base ingredient in many of the personal care
products you drip into your eyes and rub into your skin on a daily
basis. Personal care products such as shampoos, antiperspirants,
deodorants and moisturizing creams. It's even in the cooking oil
McDonald's uses for their french fries. But that's a story for
another day.
So next time you drop off your fine shirts at your local dry
cleaner, ask them if they soak your shirts in a gentle dry cleaning
fluid before tossing them into the shirt washer. If the answer is
no, they're only doing half the job. In which case, they ought to
be only charging you half the price.
How can I help you?