When "Dry Clean Only" is a Suggestion, Not a Rule

I have always tried to stay away from anything that was labeled "Dry Clean Only", if it can't be thrown in the washer, I won't buy it. Aside from the expense of dry cleaning, there's the time of dropping off, picking up and waiting on your items to be cleaned.

But, after working at a small dry cleaning business for more than 2 years, I discovered that dry cleaning was nothing like I thought it was, and now "Dry Clean Only" labels don't scare me! Until then, I'd thought that dry cleaning was some "magical" way to clean certain types of material.

It wasn't something I really thought about, I just knew that it was something that had to be done professionally and therefore you couldn't do it at home! Of course, now retail kits are sold for dry cleaning at home using your own dryer.

But, do most items that are labeled "Dry Clean Only" really need to be dry cleaned? The answer is no, they don't! I was totally amazed at the items brought in that didn't actually get dry cleaned.

Now, I'd like to make it perfectly clear that I have only worked at one dry cleaning business and I'm not saying that all dry cleaners clean items in the same way we did. But, whether they do or not, with what I learned you can save hundreds of dollars on your cleaning.

For some items, dry cleaning is the best way to go, unless you want to do all these items by hand and hang or lay them to dry, anything that will shrink is best left to the cleaners.

Yearly gross sales for dry cleaning is over $8 billion dollars according to a article at http://t-cstates.com. With everyday rising costs of gasoline, food and shelter just to name a few things, dry cleaning is a expense that you can save lots of money on.

What can you ignore the "Dry Clean Only" label on? Well, just to name a few things - prom dresses, wedding dresses, lots of sweaters and most comforters and bed spreads can even be washed by machine.