Why you're re-ironing your "laundered and pressed" shirts at home?
The reason you’re re-ironing your shirts at home is quite simple: Your cleaner is delivering a machine pressed laundered shirt or a hand finished laundered shirt.
Whereas you should be insisting on a hand ironed laundered shirt.
Most cleaners bang your shirts out on a pressing machine at a rate of 40 to 50 per hour per presser. They call that a “machine pressed laundered shirt”.
Other cleaners take that same machine pressed shirt and crease the sleeves with a hand iron. They call that a “hand finished laundered shirt” or, believe it or not, a “premium hand finished laundered shirt”.
As far as we’re concerned, it doesn’t matter if it’s a “machine pressed laundered shirt” or a “hand finished laundered shirt” or a “premium hand finished laundered shirt”. It’s still bang and hang work.
How can you tell that you’re getting bang and hang work?
Look for
- Wrinkles and ripples on both sides of the collars and cuffs
- Wrinkles and ripples in the pockets, pocket flaps and epaulets
- Wrinkles and ripples in the front and sleeve plackets
- Collars that are not correctly broken at the lower rear (i.e., there is a gap between the lower edge of the collar and the collar/back joining seam)
- Frayed collar points
- Collar stay impressions
- A triangular shaped collar (instead of a perfectly rounded collar)
- Collars and cuffs that are abrading or fraying prematurely
- Puckered side, sleeve and yolk seams
- Puckered joins between the body and sleeves of the shirt
- Puckered joins between the sleeves and cuffs of the shirt
- Wrinkled underarms
- Creased sleeves (often automatically done without the client having been given the option of a rolled sleeve)
- Poor packaging (multiple hangered shirts in a single, thin, narrow poly bag or folded shirts in a thin, narrow poly bag).
So ask for a hand ironed laundered shirt.
But be careful: In all probability, your cleaner will continue to deliver a machine pressed laundered shirt or a hand finished laundered shirt ($2 to $4) and swear it’s a hand ironed laundered shirt ($10 to $20).
Does your cleaner bait and switch and then pocket the difference?
