What shade of green is C.E.D.?  Classic Cleaners knows. 

The first dry cleaners in Indianapolis to earn the designation Certified Environmental Dry Cleaner, Classic Cleaners assumed leadership early on in our increasingly “green” Indiana economy.

The C. E. D. designation comes from the International Fabric Care Institute (IFI) and is accepted as identifying “masterful knowledge of the fabric care process”.  The owners of Classic Cleaners elected to participate in the program because we believe in protecting the environment while producing quality garment care. 

Our commitment includes:

• No smoking permitted in our cleaning facilities or delivery
• Reusing and recycling hangers, garment bags, and boxes
• Proper handling of waste
• Safe dry-cleaning operating
• Reducing “carbon footprint” from autos by reducing customer trips through our free delivery route system

Each year, owners or operators of drycleaning facilities must register with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and obtain a permit to do business in compliance with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rules.

To borrow a once-popular banking slogan, “It’s not easy being green.” But, at Classic Cleaners we find it’s quite rewarding. We’re very proud of our Indiana Five-Star Environmental Recognition award – and of our C.E.D. “green”!

So, what shade is C.E.D.?  We call it Classic Cleaners green!

by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

“Ink is such a tiny word, three letters, but it has played such a huge part on the stage of world history,” muses fellow blogger John Sollars of stinkyink.com. Since the original use of plant substances to draw on cave walls, inks have been refined and developed over the generations, all in an effort to make them more enduring.

Unfortunately, “enduring” is hardly a quality our Classic Cleaners customers wish to see when it comes to ink stains on clothes!  In fact, as Lovetoknowcleaning remarks wryly, “Ink stains are quite common, but that doesn’t make them a cinch to remove,” adding that “there is a variety of inks on the market and each poses a different challenge to remove.”

At Classic Cleaners, we know.  It seems our stain removal experts face new and different ink-related challenges every working day, with today’s culprits as likely to be printer ink and permanent marker as from fountain, gel, or ball point pens left in pockets.

With more than twenty-five years under our belts offering dry cleaning in Indianapolis, we think the Oregon Dry Cleaners Association hits the mark with its list of four DON’Ts
when it comes to ink stains on clothes:

Don’t store.  Never put away a garment with an ink stain on it.  The warmth of the closet can further set the stain into the fabric.

Don’t iron.  Ironing clothes drives stains deeper.

Don’t rub.  Blot rather than rub.  Rubbing spreads the stain and damages the fabric.

Don’t try.  Don’t attempt home spot removal with water, hairspray, club soda, or cleaning fluid.  You run the risk of damaging or discoloring the fabric.

Ink’s greatest impact has been to spread knowledge in the form of the printed word.  It’s ironic that removing ink is one of the main reasons people seek the help of dry cleaners!

With Classic Cleaners’  help, ink can continue to impact your missives and your memoirs, but never your clothes and household items!

by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

Handmade in the small English town of Honiton, the lace on Queen Victoria’s wedding gown took more than one hundred lace makers more than six months to create. When the queen married Prince Albert in 1840, she started a trend by wearing a white dress – before that, white gowns were quite unusual.

To this day, lace adds a beautiful romantic touch to garments, especially wedding and christening gowns. Two famous types of lace are Chantilly and Alencon; each can come embroidered with seed beads and pearls.

The delicate surface of lace demands special sewing techniques – and special lace dry cleaning care. If the holes in the lace are large, there is even greater danger of snagging and tearing (this is especially true with vintage wedding gowns).

One of the wedding gown dry cleaning challenges the professionals at Classic Cleaners face comes from stains accumulating around the beaded edges of lace. The “terrible threes”, sugars, salts, and acids, do the kind of damage to wedding gowns with which conventional dry cleaning methods cannot cope.

 The clean, safe, and unique methods of wedding gown hand cleaning, dry cleaning and preservation perfected over the years by Classic Cleaners have kept many a lacy wedding gown in an enchanting state of perfection!

by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

Classic Cleaners Limited Time Offer – January 2 – January 22, 2011

Pack a Sack – $4 off 4 pieces or more

Online encyclopedia Wikipedia lists a number of reasons why businesses offer discounts:

• to increase short-term sales
• to reward behaviors that benefit the business
• to reward valuable customers

In a way, all three reasons hold true for Classic Cleaners’ limited time offers. Of course, since all our customers are valuable, we want to reward them all in 2011, knowing that anything that benefits our customers, benefits our business,

Wikipedia refers to cumulative quantity discounts, “price reductions based on the quantity purchases over a set period of time.” That description fits the Classic Rewards program at Classic Cleaners: For every $200 you spend within a six month period, you get $10 off your next order.

Packing a sack is a great way to save money on dry cleaning – or of making the most of a mid-day meal. “Like a cleaver chops lettuce, packing your lunch will shred your food bill,” assers Charlotte Mielziner of Helium, Inc.. “Just packing your own lunch can relate to a $1,300 savings years or a nice vacation on a sunny beach.”

To Hoosiers like us, that sunny beach doesn’t sound half bad.  Neither does saving lots of money by packing a sack for our next dry cleaning order!

by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team