Evening wear and ballgowns

As the pandemic recedes in many areas, night life is resuming and ballgowns and evening dresses of every type and style are now coming back into cleaners, demanding expert attention. This month we look at the problems to be tackled, with difficult stains made more difficult by the delicate fabrics which they spoil and dresses woven from impossible yarns (such as organza). These demand key skills, which can take time and practice to acquire but which can make all the difference between a very satisfied customer and an expensive complaint.

Most of the garments described here could have been successfully cleaned, with little or no residual staining or damage. Let’s see why they each went wrong.

How to ask the customer to authorise risks with expensive items

Many disclaimers are not worth the paper on which they are printed, often because they seek to transfer all risks to the owner of the high value item and give the cleaner carte blanche. The best approach is to make clear that you are only asking for authorisation for those risks which are foreseeable but unavoidable. If your disclaimer form makes this clear, then you stand a very good chance of it being accepted by a solicitor or County Court Judge. Highlighting particular risks with an asterisk or a balloon drawn round them is a good idea. Don’t be afraid to add your own note if this will make a risk clearer. Here is an example form, which can be downloaded from www.laundryandcleaningnews.com and modified as required, with your business name at the top. With care, your disclaimer can become an advert for your quality!

Organza dress is permanently ruined

Fault: this dress was labelled ‘Dry clean only’ with no symbols or other indication of the solvent to use or the precautions required. The drycleaner risked a ‘delicates’ cycle in Perc but the result was disastrous. The organza fabric also contained metallic threads, the covering on which was removed in large areas and the result was a distressing wreck.

Technical cause: organza can be difficult to clean successfully. It does not wash or wetclean well and coatings on metallic fibres can be difficult for the cleaner to test and assess accurately. The problems are exacerbated by the necessary mechanical action and solvent used in drycleaning. The maker clearly did not understand the drycleaning process and the properties of the textile and perhaps took the label ‘Dry clean only’ to mean don’t wash this!

Responsibility: the blame for the incorrect care label and the lack of sensible cleaning instructions should be taken by the maker in this case, with the retailer sharing the blame for stocking a garment with a sub-standard care label (which comes nowhere near the requirements of International Standard 3758). The cleaner should not be sharing the blame here.

Rectification: this garment cannot be restored by any economic method.

Tip for the future: Organza can be made of several textile fibre types including polyester so when accepting an organza item, the cleaner should first establish the fibre content. With silk items in particular the customer should be warned about the considerable risks, regardless of the label. It is often wisest to offer 'hand clean only' and to remove the stains as far as is possible with water and/or steam (testing first) and then sponge soiled areas and lightly press. Obviously, the charge is much higher, but the chances of producing wearable garment make this worth it.

This organza dress became patchy and discoloured during drycleaning

Like an old dish rag!!

Fault: after cleaning in perchloroethylene, this striking silk ball gown came out limp and lifeless and had lost its original sheen and looked to have faded. Despite the cleaner’s pressing skills, it could not be improved (“still like an old dish rag” in the words of its owner).

Technical cause: the oils with which silk yarns are lubricated prior to weaving give the cloth a luxurious handle and sheen, but they are frequently removed by drycleaning solvents, of which perchloroethylene is the most powerful. The result is a limp fabric without sheen that may look faded.

Responsibility: this garment was labelled with the dryclean symbol . This should have set the warning bell ringing as all silk items are potentially susceptible to mechanical damage in drycleaning which can give the appearance of fading, therefore silk items should always carry a  symbol. The responsibility in this instance lies with the garment maker, because the garment is incorrectly labelled and the result is a direct consequence of using one of the solvents specified by the care label. Even using a ‘delicates’ cycle could cause a loss of body and handle.

Rectification: to improve the result using Perc, add a little suede oil to a distilled rinse followed by a short spin - tumble for ½ min before turning on the fan. The optimum dosage of suede oil is about 50ml/litre of solvent. This will leave some solvent (and oil) on the garment. The solvent is evaporated off in the tumble dry stage, leaving the oil behind to replace the yarn oils, restoring the body and sheen. This enhances the colour to help reverse the apparent fade. Silk re-oiling products are also available for application from an aqueous bath.

Don’t confuse detergent pre-brushing with stain pre-treatment!

Fault: this garment needed attention to some beetroot stains before machine drycleaning. There was no damage when it left the pre-spotting table but it came out with pale brush-marks and the beetroot was still there. The pale brush marks became vividly visible when the owner wore the garment to the local night club under disco-lighting.

Technical cause: the operator brushed the stained areas with machine- detergent. The moisture in this slowly loosened the dyes slightly in the treated areas. The drycleaning solvent flushed out the weakened dyes to create the pale brush marked patches. The operator also raised the fluorescence of the treated areas by using machine detergent (which contained optical brighteners). This was highlighted by the ultraviolet night club lighting.

Responsibility: the drycleaner is to blame for this. The beetroot stain should not have been pre-brushed with machine detergent or, for that matter, with pre-spotting soap but should have been de-coloured with a tannin remover, after suitable testing, followed by flushing and drying.

Rectification: unfortunately, none is possible.

The pale brush marks are the result of unwise pre-spotting!

Slits appear in stunning striped dress

Fault: this silk and linen dress was labelled , so the cleaner used a delicate cycle in Perc. To the dismay of both the cleaner and the owner it came out of the machine with horizontal slits visible.

Technical cause: the very fine warp yarns in the fabric, which run from top to bottom of this dress are much weaker than the weft ones running across the width. It received inadequate protection from mechanical action in the cleaning process and in two separate places the weaker warp yarn has parted. This probably occurred during the solvent wash, when the mechanical stresses on the fabrics are greatest. These weak points have then opened up into the slits now apparent, possibly during the drying stage.

Responsibility: this should be taken by the cleaner, because on the evidence available, the garment was probably correctly labelled, and the garment was obviously of a very delicate nature. The bar beneath the circle symbol includes the need for protection from mechanical action (to which silk is particularly susceptible) and if the garment had been cleaned in a net bag, pinned to the correct size, then the damage could probably have been avoided.

Rectification: an expert repairer might be able to achieve an ‘invisible’ (or not very obvious) repair to recover a wearable garment here. It is certainly worth a try.

• If you have problems you would like the authors to examine please send with a good quality, high resolution (300dpi/1MB at least) pic of the item to kathy.bowry@laundryandcleannnews.com