It's truly amazing how
many garments we see on a monthly basis with stain tags hanging
from the hanger or attached to a dry cleaner's original
invoice.
You know the one's I'm talking about. Those tags that say
"sorry, we tried but we couldn't remove the stain on this
garment".
Really, Mr. Dry Cleaner? You tried and tried, but you couldn't
remove the stain?
This is my question: You say you tried but do you even have the
technical skills to remove those stains in the first place?
Take this not-too-expensive rayon, polyester and spandex, white
two piece suit with black trim brought in by a new client.
Someone had spilt red wine down the back of the blazer and onto
the lower reaches of the slacks. She took it to her "regular
cleaner" where some gum-chewing high schooler told her that she was
confident that they could remove the stain. The client told me that
she was reassured when she was told that they "were the best in
town to handle difficult jobs."
From the photos shown below, it is quite clear what they did.
They tossed the suit into the dry cleaning machine, recited a
prayer, and pressed the start button. And when the stain failed to
miraculously disappear, they reached for their stockpile of "sorry
tags" and then profusely apologized for not saving the suit.
Voila! Mission accomplished. Next garment please!
So what to do?
The client brought the suit to us with the following plea: "Please save my suit. It's not expensive
but I love wearing it."
The problems we faced were 4-fold:
- The wine stain had been transformed from a red stain to a
grayishly blue stain due to contact with dry cleaning solvent in
the dry cleaning machine.
- The stain had probably been set from contact with heat in the
dry cleaning machine and on the press.
- The white suit was rather dingy due to "cleaning" in
filthy dry cleaning solvent.
- The black dye on the trim was a "bleeder". This meant that any
contact with water or wet steam would cause the black dye to bleed
onto the white fabric, ruining the suit even further.
The before and after photos below reflect the transformation
from dingy and stained to pristine white:
Before
After
After - no dye bleed
Who says that you must always be satisfied with your dry
cleaner's assertion that a stain is impossible to remove?
Impossible by whose standards?
How can I help you?