Top cleaning secrets dry cleaners know

When it comes to keeping your clothes clean, dry cleaners know the best methods, from simple solutions for treating stains to how often to get certain things cleaned. While there’s a reason they’re the professionals and there some things only they can do best, they’re also willing to share some of their tried-and-true tips to make your laundry life easier.

According to Abe Navas, the General Manager of house cleaning service Emily’s Maids, you should leave your denim at home for your next trip to the dry cleaner. Even “if you have a nice pair, you shouldn’t bring [jeans] to a dry cleaner,” he told Reader’s Digest. “You are better [off] just using your washing machine.” In fact, the more expensive the jean, the less it will benefit from a trip to the dry cleaner, according to Clare Moore, Director of Franchising at Tide Cleaners.

When it comes to delicate items, Navas actually has the opposite advice from jeans: Head straight to the dry cleaner. “Delicates are difficult to work with,” he says. “You need proper techniques and equipment. If you stain them, please abstain from using a DIY solution.” He says that trying to tend to stains on your delicates can often make things worse, damaging your garments. You’re better off trusting a professional for these.

Enjoy these handy hints that make doing the laundry less of a hassle. 

When something has a bad stain, it can be tempting to panic and start trying all sorts of heavy-duty treatments on it. But that can cause more harm than good, says Natalie Barrett, cleaning supervisor at Nifty Cleaning Services and a former dry cleaner. “If you suspect that your stain is really severe, don’t perform DIY treatments at home,” she advises. “Many times, people destroy their fabrics trying to clean the stains.” Bottom line? “If it was so easy for everyone to do it, there wouldn’t be any dry cleaners at all!”

It’s no secret that baking soda has some serious cleaning power. But it shouldn’t always be your go-to, Navas says. “Baking soda is great, but it can cause some damage in specific fabrics,” he says. “Our recommendation is to try it [on] a small part of your clothing and then expand to the rest of the surface.”

Here are 11 things you should never clean with baking soda.

It’s a lot easier to tackle a stain when you know exactly what it is, but mystery stains happen. Luckily, there are a few ways to get a better idea of what’s besmirching your clothes. Bryan Stoddard, founder of Homewares Insider, offers some suggestions. “Stains caused by food or drink usually appear on the front of the clothing, and mud and other similar stains such as dirt and dust [are more likely to be] on the lower half of your clothes,” he told Reader’s Digest. Not foolproof, of course, but a good place to start. And if the stain is on your floor or rug, consider which room it’s in; that can help you narrow it down. “It will likely be a food stain in the living room, while in the bathroom you might stain your towels by using nail polish remover, for example,” he says.

Even if you can’t figure out what a stain is, Stoddard has a suggestion for treating it safely and effectively. “Start [by] soaking in cold water. Then use a detergent with lukewarm water, and simply immerse your clothes in the resulting mix,” he says. “Don’t rub the clothing, especially since you don’t know how the stain actually formed. Instead, lightly ‘tap’ the stain, until the stain fades away.” And if that doesn’t work? “You can always try dry cleaning! It is a more aggressive way of cleaning, but it will help you with more stubborn stains.”

If you’re understandably fed up with stuffing your bedding into the washing machine, Andrew Taylor, director of Net Lawman, wants you to know that dry cleaners will clean it for you! “[Dry cleaners] do more than clothes!” he says. “I have brought in blankets and duvets before…because they are difficult to do otherwise.” Of course, it’ll be pricier, but especially if the item is dirty or stained, it’ll save you a lot of headache. He recommends bringing them to get cleaned once a year at an absolute minimum.

An unexpected way to ensure you’re taking better care of your clothes, at least according to Taylor, is to take more pride in the clothes you own – which might mean owning fewer things. “I have…become a quality-over-quantity kind of person, investing in a couple of nice shirts and jackets that last me and making sure I care for them accordingly,” he says. “When we have a lot of everything, we tend to leave clothes dirty for several days on the floor. I have reduced my wardrobe significantly so I take more pride and effort in ensuring that the items I have are treated correctly.”

Find out the things you never knew you could put in the washing machine.

Unfortunately, some detergents that posit themselves as environmentally friendly are far from perfect. Barrett says that you should be wary of those “green” labels. “The truth is that most green alternatives still have chemicals,” she says. “Since people are so concerned if the cleaning agent has the dreaded perchloroethylene, they overlook that the green solutions also have chemicals inside.” She says that at the end of the day, regular laundry detergents aren’t all that bad. Plus, “drying machines have special systems to capture the residue detergent.”

Here are 13 ways green living can make you healthier.