I have a number of business shirts and some suits that I rotate and get dry cleaned. They aren’t expensive suits or shirts by any stretch. With cost of living going up and affordability of dry cleaning becoming questionable for me, does anyone have an alternative for keeping these clean? Would a hand wash be too damaging?
Alternative to Dry Cleaning to Reduce Costs?
Corza000 on 06/03/2023 - 23:05
Comments
Standard business shirts never need to be dry cleaned. If you are buying shirts that need to be dry cleaned you are not effected by the "cost of living crisis".
Suits should never be dry cleaned unless you spill something on them. Don't wear your suit jacket when you're eating the hors d'oeuvres or soup at your next work mixer or after your third daiquiri and you should be right.
My shirts are if the ‘ozbargain deal’ variety so I’d say I don’t need to get them dry cleaned! Just thought I might be prematurely destroying them washing them all the time.
Thanks
Stick a logo on your suits
why are you dry cleaning your suits? The jacket especially doesn't need to be dry cleaned except if it gets dirty, as for the pants, well, up to you.
As for the shirts, you can get them ironed at the dry cleaner for much cheaper than dry cleaning if you wash them prior. Or just iron them yourself.
Business shirts used to be the bane of my existence and I'm so glad I don't have to wear/deal with them anymore.
Exactly what I was thinking. How often do you wear a jacket / get it dry cleaned ?
When I was in my hayday of wearing a suit every day I would probably dry clean the jacket itself every 6 months unless it got particularly dirty/wet
Most shirts are hand or machine washable, unless you've bought some type of material that's hard to maintain. From there, learn to iron your own shirts. Makes no sense to pay a dry cleaner to do it when you can do it for a fraction of the price.
Trousers: Always get two when you buy a suit for every day wear.
You can wash these in the machine.
Shirts you can wash these in the machine.Jacket you can spot clean with a hand steamer low setting.
If you have a chest freezer you can also bag and freeze to refresh for smells.
Shirts - just wash and iron yourself. If in a hurry or maybe once every month/3 months, get them dry cleaned.
Look for a press service. Should be able to find 5 shirts for $18 or similar.
But if your shirt cost you sub $100, think about what $3 per press is worth.
You can also get no iron shirts eg Charles Tyrwhitt
Thanks for all the replies. Very helpful. I will try the gentle washes and ironing the shirts. I’ll hold of on the suits!
Ironing is a pain in the arse. Use a cold cycle and the easy iron setting on your washing machine, dry the shirts as flat as you can (hanging them over the clothes line long-ways so there are no wrinkles is fine), and invest in a clothes steamer https://www.kmart.com.au/product/garment-steamer-42393009/ Every retail clothing shop has a clothes steamer out the back and they work great.
Suit jacket is something I would dry clean. Suit pants go into the machine on my gentlest cycle in a garment bag (my machine’s gentle cycle is excellent, I put a fitted hat in there and it doesn’t lose shape)
Shirts go in on a delicates or shirts cycle. They’re fine. I don’t like dry cleaning shirts, complete waste of money, even on my expensive shirts