Why wools, silks, cottons & linens feel stiff and crusty after dry cleaning

New clients often ask us why their wools, silks, cottons and linens feel stiff and crusty when they’re returned by a cleaner.

Our answer is quite simple: Your wools, silks, cottons and linens feel stiff and crusty because of sizing.

Why dry cleaners love sizing

Sizing is to dry cleaning what starch is to shirt laundry.

You see, ordinary cleaners love sizing. So they add or inject sizing into their dry cleaning machines during the dry cleaning “wash” cycle. In much the same way that you add detergent or softener to your home washer.

Their stated reason?

According to one Phoenix cleaner’s literature, to “keep each garment feeling new and crisp” and to “retain your garment’s original shape, weight and feel” (and, no we didn't make that up!).

And the true reason?

The more sizing they add, the quicker and easier it is for their employees to bang out your garments on a press.

This is particularly true in those cases where

• a dry cleaner glues or heat seals bar codes onto all your garments and household textiles,
• a dry cleaner pays his pressers by the piece and
• the pressers must produce a certain minimum number of pieces per hour.

What gets sized?

Everything in the dry cleaning load. Cottons. Linens. Silks. Rayons. Wools such as alpaca, angora, camelhair, cashmere, escorial, marino, mohair and vicuna. Super 100s, 120s, 150s and 160s.

Is it any wonder your fine wools, silks, cottons and linens feel and drape like cardboard when you get them back from an ordinary cleaner?

What to do?

Ask your cleaner whether they add sizing to their dry cleaning solvent or fluid, whether they glue or heat seal bar codes onto all your garments and household textiles, whether they pay their pressers by the piece, and whether their pressers are required to meet specific production quotas.

If they glue or heat seal bar codes onto all your garments and household textiles, if they pay their pressers by the piece and if their pressers are required to meet specific production quotas, then, in all probability, they add sizing to their dry cleaning solvent or fluid.