Putting Trust in the Gentle Cycle
From across the room, Logan asks, “Mike, when do you dry clean your clothes?”
I go to the dry cleaners twice a year—maybe three times a year maximum. The only things I dry clean are coats and suits, and every few years, ties. I wash all of my dress shirts using the washing machine’s gentle cycle in cold water. Washing by hand would probably be ideal, but I’ve found that the gentle cycle in the washer, and then hang drying the shirts, does the trick. The reason why I refuse to send my shirts to the dry cleaners is mostly because they treat your shirts with a lot of chemicals, and that has a huge effect on the lifespan of your shirts because it wears away the material, and I’d like my shirts to last longer than a year.
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Previously on The Billfold
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Come on. Don’t dry clean a dress shirt. Get a new one from your desk drawer like a MAN.
How does having to schlep your clothes to a laundromat, or at least your apartment building’s laundry room (I assume most NYC folk are in this boat), affect your choices? I’ve lived with a washer/dryer in my own house/apartment for more than a decade and in that time have come up with some elaborate gradations of what happens to what clothes (i.e., some clothes go on gentle cycle, some get dried on low, some get hung up or laid flat rather than going in the dryer, etc.). But if I had to go somewhere not my home to do this I’d be much more tempted to say “fuck it” and take it to one of those places that just charges you by the pound to do your laundry.
@jfruh not speaking for anyone else, but it made me a big proponent of the hand washing of delicates.
I have laundry in my building and a laundromat with wash and fold mere yards away, so I have my own elaborate gradations of what happens to what items. I try not to say “fuck it” (or as I usually say, “declare laundry bankruptcy”) more than a few times a year, but my sheets and towels go to the wash and fold all the time because fitted sheets! Let someone else learn how to fold them.
@jfruh I do have laundry in my building very close to my door which helps, but most importantly, I don’t mind doing laundry!
@jfruh well, if you are poor/cheap, you just wind up washing stuff in the bathtub.
@Megano! I’ve never had to do this, but my house has a laundry (suburban dweller here). But I do a lot of laundering of delicates in buckets, etc. I think if I didn’t have access to a laundry, the bath would be a no-brainer for me.
@jfruh
One of my life dreams is to live like Seinfeld in that one episode and just drop ALL my shit off at the laundry and have them do it for a fee. I only have to take the elevator down to my basement to do laundry but I despise the time suck of all of it (and the folding).
I could probably afford the take-out laundry expense but I’m too cheap and would rather spend that money on eating out more or something. Luckily, I have entirely too much time on my hands so it’s not that bad.
This month’s Vogue actually has an article about how dry cleaning is really only necessary on two very specific fabrics and that the gentle cycle or handwashing will usually do the trick. I found it heartening.
Of course, it was Vogue, so it also said you seriously look into buying very fancy German washers that have settings GENTLER THAN HANDWASHING. They put rose petals in the washer and they came out looking the same. And then I got mad that I still read Vogue every month.
@Sarah C.@twitter What Vogue had a practical article in it? THAT’S NOT WHAT YOU ARE FOR VOGUE.