Lately, I’ve had a streak of bad luck with my dry cleaning. First, the collar of my good blue blazer got messed up — lost its shape, become all puffed up or something (hard to describe). I took it back, and they kept it for awhile before telling me there was nothing they could do about it.
Then, they shrank the pants of a seersucker suit. Maybe the jacket, too, but definitely the pants. I just had them taken out a year or so ago and they fit perfectly just before I took them to the cleaners. Now the waist is tight, and that pulls the cuffs up toward my ankles.
Both the blazer and the suit are from Lourie’s, and therefore irreplaceable. Not that I have any money for buying new suits anyway.
Now, my OTHER seersucker suit needs cleaning. It was really steamy warm at Bud Ferillo’s house the other night when I was there for the Jim Rex fundraiser (which I still need to blog about, I just realized), and you know, even in seersucker, if it gets hot enough a gentleman will perspire. It was a very Old South experience.
But I’m afraid to take it to my usual cleaners.
Do you have one to recommend, one you really trust?
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Is there a problem with your site?
I was having trouble with it last night, Brad. The Kathleen Parker topic was cut off and there was a big, graphic-looking L-hand quote mark just after the cutoff point on the article. Seems ok now, though.
I’ll be checking back to see if you find a good drycleaner. I’m in need of one, too… someone that doesn’t SHRINK clothes!!! (It may be just me, but it seems like this didn’t used to be a problem…)
OK – the problem is back! Same thing with the K. Parker post.
Oh – and no R-hand navigation on your home page.
There’s stuff you can use at home. There’s Dryel, and there’s some Woolite product. Whatever you do, don’t use gasoline. Check this out:
http://www.archive.org/details/more_dangerous_then_dynamite
Thank the so-called “environmentalists” for degrading the quality of dry cleaning.
They aren’t finished. The moderates are no longer involved, and the movement is all run by radicals, most of them socialists just using it as a new home and cover for their Marxism.
Their goal is to outlaw all dry cleaning. Get used to cotton, wool, and polyester with wrinkles.
Sounds like a question for The Shop Tart.
http://theshoptart.com
Anybody besides Bart and Claudia having trouble? I’m not seeing it on my end.
Maybe it depends on your browser. I generally use Firefox.
Want a real hoot? My wife, due to a childhood illness has breathing difficulty and was on an inhaler, Albuterol. She was required to use as necessary or at least twice daily. The delivery system was a carbon based one and because of the legislation regulating carbon emissions, it has been banned for sale in the United States.
According to our pharmacist, if everyone in the world who uses it were to take a dose at one time, the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere would be less than a car engine, meeting current standards, running for a couple of seconds. That’s it.
Because of overzealous behavior by environmentalists, American citizens cannot take advantage of a drug that actually worked.
You want to know why there is so much anger over the health care proposal? This is just one, small, insignificant example of the incompetence of Washington bureaucrats in charge right now. Think of what it will be if they have total control of our health care.
And it doesn’t matter if they are controlled by Democrats or Republicans, they are all incompetent.
Never use Woolite for anything you want to keep for a while that is made of protein (wool, silk) fibers. It cleans in cold water by using chemicals that are strongly alkaline and therefore very damaging to those fibers. Dove dish detergent is a better choice. In any case, you don’t want to hand wash your suit. Hand washing tailored things runs into problems with distorted interfacing, the probable cause of your existing collar problems.
Bart, it’s not the carbon, it’s that it’s a CFC inhaler. CFC destroys ozone in a catalytic fashion. The phasing out of CFC inhalers is being done for the same reason that aerosol sprays changed in the 1970’s.
Why not get an albuterol HFA inhaler to replace the CFC inhaler? Your wife will still be able to use albuterol, it’ll just have to be propelled using HFA.
So the anger over healthcare reform is driven by misconceptions, the way you’re so angry due to your misconceptions surrounding albuterol? The only thing that will happen as a result of healthcare reform is that the 30% of healthcare dollars that are currently wasted on insurance company administrative costs will be reduced.
Santee, the specific product I mentioned isn’t Woolite, it’s some kind of Woolite brand drycleaning product, I guess you put it in the dryer the way you do with Dryel.
OK, so everybody hates environmentalists and health care reformers, with the exception of Mike and possibly kb. (Insert long-suffering sigh and eye-roll.) Does ANYBODY know a decent drycleaner???
And kb, I checked out Shop Tart… cool site! Brad, the only post I saw a problem on was the Parker piece.
Mike, I haven’t run into their drycleaning product, but I’d look into it carefully before using it, since the company is willing to use chemicals that produce long-term damage to fabrics.
Santee, I just took a look at the reviews on Amazon, it has a whole bunch of positive reviews but I read the negative reviews first; they are pretty sour and make some good points. Somebody said, it just “freshens” your clothes; if your clothes aren’t dirty they don’t need cleaning. Makes sense. I did a search on home dry cleaning and found an informative page on the process at howstuffworks; that’s a good source if anyone wants to look into the process. They weren’t super impressed.
But like I said above, whatever you do, don’t clean your clothes in gasoline. That link I put up is real; it’s this informational film by the dry cleaning industry, I think it’s in like the 1930’s, all about the hazards of cleaning with gasoline. They have some woman pouring gasoline into a bowl (I hope it’s really water) and washing a garment in it. People must have really done that. I looked at the film and they kept saying, this can happen, that can happen, this can happen, I said to myself, yep, you don’t have to tell me twice.
Dry Cleaning?? Seems like that would be one of the first things to give up or at least greatly cut back during an unemployment stint. I haven’t used a dry cleaners in years. I just buy stuff that is safely washed in a regular washing machine. And I never use the dryer for my clothes. I just hang them up and let the air from the AC unit do the rest. (I do dry towels and sheets but not clothes).
Brad, I have to say your experience with unemployment must be quite different from the average Joe who is at risk of losing his car, home and dignity. Apparently you did an excellent job of preparing for just such an event. You really should be proud of yourself for doing such a great job of planning.
By the way, I’m having problems with the site also.
Somebody give me details on what kind of trouble you’re having…
I really like the cleaners out in West Columbia on Hwy 1, the ones with the blue & white sign who just moved to a new building (sorry, can’t remember their name).
Yes, I live in Aiken and take my dry cleaning to Columbia, at least all the really nice stuff, because every single cleaners in Aiken puts staples in the clothes.