At Classic Cleaners, we’ve never met a button we didn’t like. On the other hand, we’ve prepared ourselves to deal with some of the special challenges buttons can pose in the course of dry cleaning and laundering your garments.

• We have a special Classic Cleaners button guarantee: Should there be any broken or missing buttons on your laundered shirts, we sew on new ones!
• If one of your garments has very delicate buttons (rhinestone buttons on evening clothes, studs, or beaded buttons, for example), our Classic Cleaners seamstress Ohi Suhre may carefully remove those buttons, then re-attach them after the dry cleaning process is complete.

Did you know that buttons were first used as ornaments rather than for fastening? The earliest known button, dating back 5000 years, was found by archeologists in the Indus Valley.  According to SocyBerty.com, the Greeks took the button a step closer to use as a fastener by creating a loop for it out of strands of thread. Mass production of buttons came about during the industrial revolution, and the rest is button history!

One really fascinating aspect of buttons has to do with the feminist movement. In the course of campaigning for equal rights, women gradually adopted men’s clothing styles. But for some reason (there are different theories about why this is so), women’s clothes have always buttoned to the left, while men’s garments continue to button to the right!Whether you fasten your clothing east to west or the reverse, as a Classic Cleaners’ customer, you may be sure your clothes will be returned to you clean, fresh, and ready to –  button!

by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

Yellowing is a big dry cleaning challenge, no doubt about it.  And I don’t mean just a yellow spot, but when an entire section of a garment or even the entire thing, has turned from white to a sickly shade of yellow.

To be sure, Classic Cleaners’ professionals have been able to chalk up some major successes in the battle against yellowing.  Blog readers may recall Regina Mattson’s wedding blanket, the pair of lace wedding shoes, and Brooke Hynds Mackin’s 62-year old, third generation wedding gown.

According to fibre2fashion.com, “yellowing of textile fabrics is one of the oldest and most widespread quality problems known.”…”As a general statement, yellowing…is an indication of unintended chemical degradation.” Fibre2fashion lists several factors that can cause fabrics to yellow:

• Exposure to excessive heat and light (sunlight or fluorescent light)
•  Chemical additives in softeners or brightening agents
• Contaminants from boxes or bags (we wrote about the importance of acid-free containers just the other day)
• Perfumes and body lotions
• High humidity

Some of the time, in fact most times, our experienced technicians have won the battle against yellowing on garments and linens. There have been times, though, when garment are just too far gone for us to restore. (Almost always, though, when you bring in a garment for a consultation, we can predict how well it’s likely to turn out.) 

From a treasured garment’s point of view, it’s just not easy being yellow!

by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

Don't sing the Holiday Stain Refrain!

Some things just seem to go together.  At Classic Cleaners, two of those things seem to be holidays and stains on clothing!

This July 4th weekend, it was independence and ice cream stains.

On Labor Day, it’ll likely be barbecue sauce stains and blouses.

No doubt, Thanksgiving will combine with turkey gravy stains.

And, after the winter holidays, we’ll see water spots on velvet, and green and red (or blue and white, depending upon customers’ religion!) candle wax on tablecloths.

No matter what the season, the professionals at Classic Cleaners stand ready to put their stain removal skills to the test.

Often, though, what makes the difference between success and, well, less-than-perfect, is time. The sooner you bring your stained garments or table linens in for professional laundering or dry cleaning, the better.  To paraphrase an old saying, a Classic Cleaners stain removal in time, saves nine (out of ten garments).

If there’s a “never-never” for dry cleaning customers, it’s this:

Never, never put away a garment or tablecloth for the season without having it cleaned first!

Before the holiday glow has a chance to fade – or the stains to set in – bring those clothes and linens to Classic Cleaners.

That way, you’ll never be singing the “holiday stain refrain”!

 by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

Thread Count Counts at Classic Cleaners!

If you learn nothing else about suits, askmen.com wants to be sure you learn about thread count.

  The higher the thread count, the finer the weave and delicacy of the wool fabric – a count higher than 300 signifies a fine fabric. Closer to 180, though, may mean your suit is “tougher” and that the fabric might hold up longer.

Askmen.com was talking about all-wool suits, but quite often, the business suits turned in for dry cleaning at our Indianapolis, Westfield, and Carmel Classic Cleaners locations are made of a blended fabric. Sometimes suits contain a blend of natural and man-made fibers. The care label will offer a recommendation for method of cleaning that is based partially on the fabric blend.

It’s interesting.  We generally mistrust the statement “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you”, but, as an Ohio State University Extension Fact Sheet on textile sciences explains, most consumers consider care labels a desirable form of government regulation. At Classic Cleaners, our professionals begin by deciphering the label on each garment, and then proceed to study each stain. 

With decades of combined experience, the Classic Cleaners team has assembled an arsenal of tools and techniques. Thread count matters, because the finer the weave, the more delicately the suit fabric must be treated.

Thread count matters on bed linens and tablecloths as well. But, as one eBay Guide explains, there are other factors to be considered as well, such as the quality of the yarn itself, the construction, and the finishing.

Whatever the thread count of your suits or linens, you may be sure no thread will be left unraveled as Classic Cleaners treats your fabrics to professional care!

While Classic Cleaners’ General Manager Steve Arnold and the other 24 members of the 4th Virginia Company were cooking wild turkey at Conner Prairie Village’s civil war re-enactment last month, Arnold realized, their vintage uniforms were absorbing the smell of the campfire.

Interesting.  Although Classic Cleaners has earned a reputation for expert stain removal, it’s often true today that garments with no stains still need dry cleaning in order to remove smells.

Back in Civil War times, clothes were left out in the open air to get deodorized.  Today, Classic Cleaners’ technicians use an ozone-making machine the size of a small space heater. Clothes are exposed to the ozone within a closed-off room.  Just a few minutes with the ozone machine equals the effect of a couple of weeks leaving clothes to air outside!

Classic Cleaners Partner Steve Arnold at 4th Virginia Company

Clothing in Civil War times was made to last for many years.  Battlefield soldiers often didn’t have the luxury of owning several changes of clothes (average monthly pay was $11!).  Still, the hand-brushing soldiers used to restore the “nap” to fabrics is still used as one of several garment hand-care techniques at Classic Cleaners today.

You may not be in the habit of cooking wild turkey over a campfire, but clothing absorbs odors from many sources, and clothing needs periodic professional deodorizing.

When Classic Cleaners returns your garments to you at the counter or at your home, you may be assured those garments are not only clean and pressed – they can pass the smell test!

by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

Taking care of your flag

There’s nothing we like better at Classic Cleaners than a clean, bright, red-white-and-blue American flag flying proudly in the wind.

 In fact, one of the special things we do to earn our “Best Dry Cleaners in Indy” rating is to clean any American or state flag (3’x5’ or smaller) free of charge.  (That’s not one of the famous Classic Cleaners monthly specials – we do flag-cleaning all year ‘round!)

 This month is the perfect time to have your flags cleaned, though. After all, we’re smack dab in the middle of flag season, what with Memorial Day a couple of weeks ago, then Flag Day this week, and Fourth of July coming up. Sure enough, at Classic Cleaners we see a lot of flags being turned in every June.

 There are actually dozens of “flag days”, including:

•  Inauguration Day (January 20)
• Lincoln’s Birthday (February 12)
• Army Day (April 6)
• Labor Day (first Monday in September)
• Constitution Day (September 17)
• Navy Day (October 27)
• Veterans Day (November 11)

 But, as capital flags.com reminds us, as a U.S. citizen, you may display your flag any day you like!

 Our Classic Cleaners’ professionals can help guard the colors of your flag and remove dirt and stains, but guarding against tears is often something the owner needs to do. It’s important not to fly your flag where it will come in contact with tree branches, wire cables, or even nails and hooks protruding from a building’s walls.

 Capitalflags.com advises protecting your flag from exposure to storms and abnormally high winds, because any of these things can shorten a flag’s life.  While many flags today are made of weather-proof material, high winds can tatter any flag.  At Classic Cleaners we want to add that, if your flag gets wet, spread it out to dry before bringing it to be professionally cleaned.  Putting the flag into a bag while wet can cause some of the colors to “bleed”.

 At Classic Cleaners, we want to help you keep those American – and those Indiana State – flags flying high and proud!

by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

Commenting about mistakes, well-known author and sales trainer Zig Ziglar had this advice: “Some of us learn from other people’s mistakes.  The rest of us have to BE other people!”Of course we know everyone makes mistakes. But since the professionals at Classic Cleaners work hard to remain the best dry cleaners in Indy, we don’t want our customers to be making garment care mistakes other people learn from!

Deteriorated wedding gown

Knowing that wedding gown restoration is a specialty at Classic Cleaners, a customer brought us a dress in hopes it could be restored.  Unfortunately, too much time had passed; too much damage had been done. As you can see from the photo, the sleeves of the dress had already deteriorated and were starting to come apart.  Mildew had rotted the front area of the garment. We needed to break the bad news to the owner that, while it was possible that the original color of her dress might be restored, the fabric would not hold up under  total stain removal treatment.

What “O.P.M.” lessons can be learned from her story?
 
Never put away a garment with stains (even if you suspect something might have been spilled on it).

Exposure to any of these can set the stains in and cause deterioration of the fabric:

• The warmth of a closet or car trunk (especially when the garment is in a plastic bag!)
• Light
• The atmosphere
• Insects
• Heat
• The wrong combination of chemicals
• Rubbing

Always tell your dry cleaning professional if there has been a spill, even if there’s no sign of a stain. The longer you wait, the less likely you are to recall the important information your dry cleaner needs to treat your garment.

While the wedding gown could not be fully restored for wear, the technicians at Classic Cleaners were able to gently clean the gown and preserve it in one of our archival wedding gown boxes.

(See, Zig?  We’re offering our Classic Cleaners customers every O.P.M. opportunity to learn about garment care  the easy way!)

Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

In the famous Edgar Allen Poe short story, The Telltale Heart, the murderer was convinced he’d covered his tracks.  “There was nothing to wash out – no stain of any kind,” he’d told himself.

Have you ever spilled something and had the stain disappear, leaving no sign of champagne, soda, or food? 

Telltale Stains Too Late To Fix

Weeks or even months or years later, a yellow or brown stain magically appears at the very spot of the original spill. How did that happen?

At Classic Cleaners, we see many such unwelcome “encore appearances” of stains.  Clear alcoholic beverages often don’t appear to have done any damage at the time they’re spilled on a dress, jacket, or trousers.  But, stealthy as ”telltale hearts”, back come the telltale signs of  past spills of tea, coffee, soda, or champagne, white wine, or fruit juice.

Speaking of fruit, you’ve seen a peeled apple turn brown. No real mystery,  just science – the brownish color is a result of the sugar in the fruit oxidizing or “carmelizing” when it’s exposed to air.

The problem with carmelizing on clothes, though, is that time and heat help set in those reappeared stains, and the more time that passes, and the more heat there is, the harder it becomes to ever get those stains out of the fabric.

Spills happen on the happiest of occasions.  But for there to be a happy ending to your Telltale Stain story, remember these three rules:

• Blot – don’t rub! – the stain when the spill happens.
• Even if you see no signs of the spill on your garment, as soon as possible, bring it in for dry cleaning!
• Tell all!  Make sure your dry cleaning professionals know exactly what happened.  That way, the stain can be pre-treated before the garment is exposed to any heat in the dry cleaning process.

The murderer thought he’d gotten away with the crime, but the Telltale Heart “reappeared”, revealing the terrible truth.

That’s why Classic Cleaners’ word to the wise is:

If YOU don’t tell the truth about your stains, your stains will tell the story for you.  And, by then, it might be too late to restore your special garment!

TV reality show In A Fix highlights do-it-yourself home repair disasters – moldings that don’t reach to corners, paint colors that bleed through, wallpaper run short one panel shy of a room – you name it.

At Classic Cleaners, our technicians see more than their share of do-it-yourself stain removals gone bad. There’s nothing wrong with trying to save money on dry cleaning bills.  The problem is that using the wrong chemical – or the wrong balance of chemicals – may mean permanently setting a stain instead of removing it.

Products typically recommended on do-it-yourself stain removal websites include:

• Borax powder                                                               
•  Cream of tartar and lemon juice paste
•  Rubbing alcohol
•  Baking soda
•  Club soda
•  Salt
•  Non-oily hairspray
•  Dish detergent
•  WD-40

The most dangerous do-it-yourself products of all are those claiming to take any stain out. We at Classic Cleaners have one word for those: NOT!  That’s because alkaline is needed to take out acid stains; acid is needed to take out alkaline stains.  You can’t have it both ways and achieve the desired neutral – a Ph of 7.

Mrs.CleanUSA.com’s.advice about removing permanent marker stains from carpet comes in three stages:

• Stage One: Use rubbing alcohol or hairspray, blotting up the ink with a white towel.
• Stage Two: Get advice from a professional carpet cleaner
• Stage Three: (last resort) Cut the stain our.  Cut clean carpet from an inconspicuous place such as a closet and glue it where the stained carpet was.

When it comes to articles of clothing you care about, we highly recommend going directly to Stage Two, turning the problem over to the professionals at Classic Cleaners!

 by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

Classic Cleaners' Unipress machine

CLASSIC CLEANERS SPRING SHIRT SPECIAL

50% OFF  ALL MEN’S OR WOMEN’S SHIRTS 

BROUGHT  IN TO BE LAUNDERED AND MACHINE-PRESSED 

JUNE 1 THROUGH JUNE 7

 Styles and trends in men’s dress shirts have changed over the years, fashion expert Andrew Stratton points out. “A crisp, stark-white shirt will probably not impress a potential employer as much as it might make you look like a waiter,” he adds.  “Choose palettes that compliment your complexion and eye coloring”  is Stratton’s advice.

At Classic Cleaners we launder shirts of every possible shade, style, and fabric.  And, while in general, men’s clothing tends to be much more casual and relaxed than in times past, there’s nothing like a crisply pressed dress shirt to spruce up a gentleman’s appearance.

Do you wear your shirts the classic way, tucked in and buttoned up with a tie?  Perhaps you prefer a  “dapper gentleman” look, with the shirt tucked inside a sweater.  The “modern way” might consist of an un-tucked long-sleeved shirt worn open-collared under a sport coat.

Can you believe thirty five years have passed since John T. Molloy published the book Dress For Success?  We leave it to our Classic Cleaners customers to decide whether Molloy’s advice is outdated when it comes to men’s business attire.  “You will never, ever, as long as you live,” Molloy practically shouted from Page 86 of his book, “wear a short-sleeve shirt for any business purpose…”

You’ll see many different styles, and hear many different opinions about the most appropriate ways for men to wear dress shirts.  Whatever your preference, our skilled technicians devote special care to helping you look your very best.

Our newest Unipress shirt machine (operated here by Classic Cleaners technician Johana Duque) wet-presses the shirt’s sleeves, torso and collar simultaneously, with inspection and touch-ups by hand to follow.  The result: With every button in place, the perfectly pressed, starched-to-order shirt is ready to help seal a business deal, clinch a job interview, or attract compliments at the most elegant party!

 by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team