Drycleaning?

[Keebler Elf]

Does drycleaning prolong or reduce the lifespan of an average shirt or pair of slacks?

I could see that less tumbling in a washing machine/drying is a good thing, but the chemicals from drycleaning might be worse...

 

[Hammerstein]

For the average shirt or pants, I can't see there really being a difference.
The tumbling is still there in the dry cleaning.

 

[skypilot]

Drycleaning wears your clothes out fast, and should not be done that often. If you wear suits regularly you should have several and change daily. Use a clothing brush on both the trousers and jacket and use a trouser hanger and a formed hangar for the jacket.
Washable clothes should not be drycleaned, they should be washed according to the label on the item.
I prefer all cotton shirts, but found that sending them out to the cleaner for washing and ironing really beat the hell out of them. They don't dry clean these but they wash them in extremely hot water. I started buying no iron dress shirts in a mixed fabric and found them to come out of the home dryer really nicely. I still send a few shirts out as I love heavily starched & Ironed dress shirts.
Dry cleaning overseas can be an adventure. I once sent a suit to a drycleaner in Budapest and it came back with the buttons missing. The chemicals they used had melted the plastic. They told me I should have removed the buttons before giving it to them.

 

[polisci]

drycleaning

I find the colours of my dress shirts fade faster.
And the buttons on the dress shirts come back cracked. This happen to any of you ?

 

[mtl_guy]

as mentioned above, when you take your shirts to the cleaners they are washed and not drycleaned. this is not gentle on your shirts and will definitely wear your shirts out faster than if you washed your shirts at home with care. But who has the time wash and iron their own shirts?

Starch is also destructive to fabric so if you get heavy starch, your shirts will wear out faster.

As for dry cleaning of suits, it slowly destroys the fabric. Dry clean as little as possible. You can steam your suits to remove wrinkles or even get your suits pressed but not cleaned.

I find the colours of my dress shirts fade faster.
And the buttons on the dress shirts come back cracked. This happen to any of you ?

 

[Keebler Elf]

...when you take your shirts to the cleaners they are washed and not drycleaned.

Thanks, didn't realize that.

But yeah, I don't take them for the cleaning, I take them for the pressing. Too bad you can't just do the latter.

 

[mtl_guy]

i think you might be confusing "laundering" and "dry cleaning".

no drycleaner will take the buttons of your common cotton or poly/cotton dress shirt before its laundered.

if you are talking about getting a "fancy" shirt dry-cleaned then yeah, some will try to protect the buttons. But thats drycleaning, and you will pay more than the $2 or $3 it costs to have a shirt laundered.

Another thing is that a lot of "drycleaners" only do their own drycleaning and send out their shirts to a "laundry service". So often times it doesnt matter what cleaner you take your shirts too because they end up at the same place.

it really depends on the cleaner you go to. the ones who know what they are doing and handle expensive clothes always remove the buttons, dry clean the shirt and then sew the buttons back on. if the buttons are just regular buttons they wrap them up and then dryclean them. unfortunately i havent been able to find a dry cleaner who goes to this extra effort over here. the person i use is fairly competent but i am very apprehensive about sending some of my more expensive shirts to her.