Dry Cleaning Process

It often happens that our favorite shirt or dress may get spoiled because of a stain; an oil stain or a grease stain or any other food stain. I know, it looks disgusting and we might go in depression as well. Actually, that's what I go through whenever such a blunder happens with me! But there is nothing to feel sad about people. You can always go in for a dry cleaning which will help removing stains from clothes and make it look entirely new! That's the magic of dry cleaning!

Dry cleaning was discovered by Jean Baptiste Jolly, a French dye-works owner in the year 1855, and that too accidentally when his housemaid dropped kerosene on one of the stains of the tablecloth and the cloth became cleaner! Since then, it was a common practice to use kerosene or may be gasoline to dry clean clothes. But since these are highly flammable solvents, its use was restricted.

In recent times, tetrachloroethylene or perchloroethylene popular as "perc", is used in almost all dry cleaning industries and local dry clean shops. It is a synthetic solvent and is highly effective in removal of oily and greasy stains. We need to understand that "dry" cleaning process is not necessarily "dry". We always refer to something that's devoid of water, being dry. The same principle applies here too. Because we are not using water here, and instead a solvent, the process is called dry cleaning process

Selecting the Right Clothes
This is totally your choice. As a matter of fact, always dry clean clothes of yours which suit the process; preferably something that is synthetic or nylon which is not suitable for machine wash. Check out the labels on the clothes.

Tagging of the Clothes
Once you have given the clothes for dry cleaning, the clothes are tagged with different colors and a number specific to that particular cloth. This makes it easy to identify the cloth. Also, a person's details are noted down, which makes it easy to identify a lot that belongs to that individual.

Pre-Treatment Staining
This includes application of stain removers to clothes initially, so as to simplify stain removal by the solvent later on.

Process
It's done by using dry cleaning machines which are huge in size. The machine has a main chamber to put in clothes, a separate chamber to store the solvent, a pump to circulate the solvent and a filter to remove impurities. On switching the machine on, the solvent is pumped and circulated throughout the chamber, so that all the stains take up the solvent. The solvent helps remove the stain off the fabric. The used solvent is filtered for the next cycle. This repeats until the process is complete. The filtered solvent is in short, recycled each time for a new cycle. It is made sure that after the completion of the cycles, the solvent is totally removed off the clothes by an extract cycle. Later, the clothes are put in a dryer which consists of injection of heat around 63 ºC. The left over solvent on the clothes, vaporizes due to steam and condenses back to liquid form. The dried clothes are then removed. The impurities are removed by the filter. The process lasts for about 15-30 minutes depending upon the type of clothes that are to be dry cleaned.

Ironing
This gives the final touch to the clothes which includes re-shaping the clothes, removing the wrinkles and then pressing. Finally, your clothes are dry cleaned and ready!

Dry Cleaning at Home

If you are hesitant to give your clothes at a local dry clean shop and want to try dry cleaning at home, you can go ahead with it because many kits are available, which will help you for the same. The most popular one's in the market are:

• Custom Cleaner
• Dryel
• Fresh Care

These kits work without the use of solvents and huge machines. They include:

Stain Remover
As I mentioned above, it is useful in removing stains prior to dry cleaning. These are basically detergents which help remove oily or greasy stains. Watery stains like suppose a soup stain, are removed by water present in the solution. Absorbent pads are used for the same so as to capture the stain that is removed.

Inside the Bag
There is this nylon bag which has a dryer activated cloth inside, holding water, emulsifier and perfume. Switching on the dryer, facilitates excitation of these molecules because of heat, and causes them to bounce off the cloth. The high heat evolved during the process, enables the molecules to enter the fabric and help removal of the stain and impart fragrance to the clothes. The steam helps removal of wrinkles as well. The Custom Cleaner has its stain remover in the bag itself.

I would advice you all not to go in for home kits, because they are not foolproof. They help removal of lighter stains than the darker one's. So it's better to opt for laundries.

A Few Tips

• Make sure you handle all the clothes with care. Do not be harsh and rough.
• Also, make sure you test the stain before its actual use.
• I should mention that dry cleaning of all types of stains is not possible, especially the one's which have been persistent for a long time. So make sure you dry clean them at the right time.
• Also, see to it that buttons or any similar stuff of your clothes are intact.

If you want to dry clean your home carpet as well, follow the easy carpet dry cleaning which I am mentioning. Dry cleaning the carpet refers to its vacuuming which involves use of carpet cleaning powders or granules which enable carpet stain removal, after spreading onto it. Vacuuming the carpet later on, almost removes 90% of the dirt and the process is over!

The process is actually very complex, but I have elaborated precisely. I hope it will help you all. Try it out if you want to. This is just an informative article on dry cleaning process.