DRESS SHIRT CLEANING
The Clean Store specializes in high quality laundered dress shirts.
Does this sound familiar?
You wake up late, take a quick shower, and throw on your shirt as you make your morning coffee. Right as you grab your bag and head out the door, you start to button your top button so you can tie your tie, and the button falls apart in your hand! Now you have to start over. Ugh!
Yes, before starting The Clean Store that would happen to us! That’s why making your shirts not only crisp, clean (no more ring around the collar) and free from broken buttons is one of our highest priorities! We have gone all around the country working with top dry cleaners, tinkering with our water and machines, trying out the best detergents, to come up with a high quality shirt dry cleaning process at a value price.
Once each shirt has been cleaned and pressed (see below for details), it goes through a 5 point inspection process before it reaches the assembly station. Any broken buttons we find will be replaced free of charge.
Can your dry cleaner say that?
Laundered Hot Press vs. Hand Press, that is the question!
Dress shirts can be cleaned and pressed in one of two ways. They are either laundered and machine pressed on an automated process or wet/dry cleaned and hand pressed. We review every item we clean and will make the determination whether the item should be wet/ dry cleaned and hand pressed or to launder and machine press the shirt. We launder and hot press the majority of the dress shirts we receive. Let’s first explain that process.
Shirts are inspected for stains, pockets checked, and all buttons are opened. The shirts are then cleaned in a laundry type washing using top of the line biodegradable detergents. In the wash cycle process, we inject Duval energy (a general degreaser from Krussler). We also inject a shot of sizing during the final rinse.
After the shirts are cleaned they are then pressed through the following automated process on what’s called a Buck Press. The Buck is designed for mid weight cotton dress shirt between size 15-18 with standard buttons (think those pearly white plastic buttons you find on a Brooks Brothers shirt).
The shirts start this process wet and come off dry.
The other way, we would either wet or dry clean the shirt and then hand-press the shirt on a utility press with a steam iron which requires substantially more time and labor (if you’ve ever pressed a shirt yourself, you will know!).
There are several reasons why a shirt would be hand-pressed versus using the automated process. They include shirts with unique buttons, thick buttons, concave shaped buttons, designer shirts with unique embroidery on the cuff it collar, shirts that are limited edition and are difficult to find, dark shirts could develop a shine on the cuff and collar especially imprints of collar tabs, shirts made of linen, silk, polyester, spandex, shirts that have a light weight fabric and textured shirts such as seersucker. The automated process will flatten and remove the textured feel after repeated pressings.
If your shirts are not designed for a good outcome to be laundered and pressed on the buck press, we will let you know!
WHAT OUR CUSTOMERS SAY
Many thanks for taking care of those stains on Frederic’s shirts, we really cannot say where it was!
Nadia
SHIRT CLEANING METHODS
Men’s dress shirts can be cleaned and pressed in one of two ways. They are either laundered and machine pressed on an automated process or wet/dry cleaned and hand pressed. The first way described is the process we use on a majority of our shirts. Let me explain the launded process.
We review every item we clean and will make the determination whether the item should be wet/ dry cleaned and hand pressed or to launder and machine press the shirt.
Shirts are inspected for stains and all buttons are opened. The shirts are then cleaned in a laundry washing. In the wash cycle process we inject duval energy (a general degreaser from Krussler). We also inject a shot of sizing during the finial rinse.
After the shirts are cleaned they are then pressed through the following automated process designed for mid weight cotton dress shirt with standard buttons.
- First the wet shirts are placed on the cuff and collar press. This is where a curved hot plate will press and dry the cuff and collar of the shirt.
- It is then moved to the “buck press”. This is basically a torso that is dressed with the shirt.
- Next two hot plates come together and press the front and back of the shirt while hot air and steam is blown through the sleeves.
The shirts start this process wet and come off dry. - This automated process is designed for shirts that are between the sizes of 15-18. Items that have darts are slim fit will get better press with our hand press method.
The other way we would either wet or dry clean the shirt and then hand-press the shirt on a utility press with a steam iron which requires substantially more time and labor.
There are several reasons why a shirt would be hand-pressed versus using the automated process. They include shirts with unique buttons, thick buttons, concave shaped buttons, designer shirts with unique embroidery on the cuff and collar, shirts that are limited edition and are difficult to find, dark shirts could develop a shine on the cuff and collar especially imprints of collar tabs, shirts made of linen, silk, polyester, spandex, shirts that have a light weight fabric and textured shirts such as seersucker. The automated process will flatten and remove the textured feel after repeated pressings.