Dry cleaning is a craft that dates back to centuries. In modern-day society, the role of dry cleaning has become all the more necessary due to the delicate fabrics and fancy adornments used in clothes. The craft evolved as a surprise when some turpentine spirit accidentally poured on a piece of soiled cloth and it got cleaned with surprising results. Although dry cleaning is costly, it is highly beneficial in many ways. Let’s have a look.
The process of dry cleaning is much less abrasive and less harsh for your cloth fabrics. The cleaning process cleans the stains without causing much damage to the fibres, as a result of which your clothes look like new for a long time.
The cleaning agents used by the dry cleaners are very much eco-friendly and do not harm the nature unlike detergents. But this was not the case in the past. Some of the agents used earlier were harmful to the environment. With the passage of time and human awareness, they also started changing their cleaning agents and switching to eco-friendly products.
The method of dry cleaning is advantageous because it prevents shrinking of clothes. The cleaners use such types of chemicals that prevent the shrinking of fabrics. There is a high chance that the everyday detergents we use will shrink the fabrics in the garments or bed sheets, which is successfully prevented with the use of dry cleaning.
You might be surprised to know that dry cleaning can clean your clothes much better. The actual stain that we see on the clothes is roughly 30% of the actual stain. Most of the stain lies deep inside the fabrics. The normal detergent powders and soaps are not capable of removing the stains underlying in the fabric. But the cleaning agents used during dry cleaning can remove the entire stains from deep inside the fabric.
As we know, there are two types of cleaning processes, wet cleaning and dry cleaning. In wet cleaning, we remove the stains on fabrics with water and detergent, but in the process of dry cleaning, cleaners clean the clothes with the use of chemicals, hence the name dry cleaning. Some clothes require extra care while washing with regular detergents and water, and to clean these clothes, it is better to use the agents used in dry cleaning. Here are some of the agents used for dry cleaning-
Although there are different types of hydrocarbons, the petroleum-based hydrocarbons are extensively used in the dry cleaning process. They are less combustible in normal conditions.
It is known as PERC, which is a type of ether that evaporates quickly by leaving a sweet odour. It is a very common cleaning agent used by dry cleaners.
The advantage of using glycol ether is that it is much more environmentally friendly and highly effective as well than PERC. It also has a higher ignition temperature than PERC.
It is probably one of the most environmentally friendly agents among all the chemicals used in the dry cleaning process. Using this chemical does not lead to any colour loss, but it is a bit costlier than the other cleaning agents.
It is generally not a very common dry-cleaning agent, because it is unable to remove all the stains and also requires high-end machinery to clean clothes.
Did you know about these chemicals used by the dry cleaners for cleaning purposes? One of the most commonly used is petroleum hydrocarbons. You can even try it at home to see the difference in cleaning results.
