High quality animal hair textiles, cotton and linen can suffer localised felting and colour loss when treated with pre–spot products designed to flush out in the drycleaning machine.
Pre-spotting, and pre-spotting and re-cleaning are common methods for dealing with stains, but they expose items to greater risk than pre–cleaning stain removal or post spotting.
Cleaners should be aware that pre-cleaning tests, for example, for colour-fastness, cannot accurately predict the effects of conditions inside the drycleaning machine.
This difficulty often leads to adverse effects that may only be noticeable when the garment is removed from the machine.
It is also worth noting that product manufacturers do not guarantee chemicals will not adversely affect dyes.
Indeed, it would be unfair to expect them to do so when the dye on some textiles is not even fast to cold water.
If an item is sensitive in terms of moisture or colour, then the safest option is to remove any stains completely on the spotting table if possible, and make sure the material is bone dry before cleaning.
If the stains are of a manageable size, at least 80% of remaining or developed stains can be removed on the spotting table with a high pressure cold water spray.
