Ugg boots, originally from “down under” in Australia and New Zealand, have certainly become a fashion trend in the U.S., even winning a spot on the list of “Oprah’s Favorite Things”.

Made from tanned sheepskin with the fleece attached, Uggs have rubber soles.  Today’s Uggs come in a range of colors and heights, in both pull-on and lace-up styles. While dry cleaners don’t typically get involved with footwear, we wanted our Classic Cleaners customers to say “Aah…”, never “Ugh!” when it came to their boots as well as their clothes.

According to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, the boots originally became popular for competitive surfers, who used them to keep their feet warm after exiting the surf.  In fact, the fleece is designed to draw away moisture, “keeping the feet dry and at body temperature,” Wikipedia explains.

Still, there comes a point, even in the life of  Uggs, when boots cry out to be cleaned and freshened.

With the approval of UGG® Australia, Classic Cleaners now extends its “modern craft of clean” service to boot-freshening.  Now your Uggs need never look ugly. Your friends will never think, much less have the need to pronounce the syllable “Ugh!” when it comes to your stylish, beautiful boots!.
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

Gift cards are no longer “new news”.  McDonald’s began its Christmas gift-certificate program, forerunner of the gift card, back in 1970, as The Big Money points out, noting that somehow a piece of plastic managed to become the top holiday present, with Americans spending close to $100 billion on gift cards this holiday season alone!

At Classic Cleaners, gift cards aren’t “new news”, either – the company has been offering cards for the past three years. Meant for year-round gift-giving, the Classic Cleaners preloaded gift cards, issued for $10 and up, make for superb stocking stuffers.  Just a few of the many good uses for clothing care gift cards:

• As gifts for people you know who are already Classic Cleaners customers
• As a gift to your college student
• As a gift to a charity to use as a raffle prize
• As a wedding gift (for cleaning and preserving the wedding gown)

Needless to say, the small but mighty gift cards can help pay for custom alternations and for fluff and fold laundry, giving Mom a welcome break from family laundry duty, with more free time to spend with relatives and friends during the holiday season.

True, not everyone is a fan of gift cards, as MSNMoney.com is quick to admit.  “Despite the fact that economists agree it makes more sense to give someone a wad of cash, we have come to embrace the gift card, which can seem more personal and, of course, convenient.”

No, not everyone prefers to give a gift in the form of a plastic card.. But, after three years of offering the gift cards, what we can tell you for sure is this: There’s certainly one group of folks that are gigantic fans of Classic Cleaners’ gift cards.  Who are those happy people? Why the gift card recipients, of course!
by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

“Pants are one of the most common types of clothing worn by both men and women,” remarks Buzzle.com. Referred to as trousers in the UK, Buzzle.com adds, pants are also known as kex, kegs, slacks, strides, and breeches.

Whatever you call them, with hundreds of thousands of pairs of pants coming through our doors every year, at Classic Cleaners, we know precisely what the challenge is with pants – the crease. While our customers specify their pants-pressing preferences, no one has ever requested more than one crease per leg.  More often than you might suppose, however, poor pressing at home or at a former dry cleaning establishment has resulted in two, or even three, crease marks on each leg of an unfortunate pair of pants! (A second sort of damage we see is scorching, resulting from holding an iron for too long a time on one spot in order to lock in the crease.)

Pants tend to fall into two general categories: flat front or pleated. Both kinds come in a variety of styles, with or without cuffs, pocketless or with a variety of pocket types.  Susan Wright of New Mexico State University tells it like it is when it comes to pants: “Gathers or pleats at the waistline emphasize a protruding abdomen,” she says, adding “Fitted legs are unflattering for the too-thin as well as for the too-full figure.”

At Classic Cleaners we don’t offer fashion advice.  Some customers prefer flat front pants, some pleated.  There are two things no one wants, however:

• Discoloration of the fabric around the pleat mark
• More than one pleat per leg

At Classic Cleaners, therefore, what a “no crease” pant request means is that no press is put down on that pair of pants.  Instead, the pants are hand-pressed through the center of each leg.

Whatever your pleat preference when it comes to each pair of pants, from khakis to tuxedos, at Classic Cleaners, what you ask for is what you get!

by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team