Laundryfilter!

October 17, 2005 10:03 AM

I just bought a Liz Claiborne sweater at Goodwill for five bucks. I forgot to check-and sure enough the tag says "Dry Clean Only." Since I am cheap, this is not really an option. And since the garment was cheap I am not afraid to take a risk. So-any suggestions from you folks about how to launder this thing at home?
posted by konolia to clothing, beauty, & fashion (21 comments total)

What is it made of? Some things, like rayon, will shrink significantly if hand-washed (learned that lesson the hard way) while other fibers will do just fine in cold water.
posted by ambrosia at 10:07 AM on October 17, 2005

Cold water and Woolite.
posted by horseblind at 10:07 AM on October 17, 2005

I've always had good luck with Dryel for all of my dey-cleaning at home needs.
posted by AlisonM at 10:09 AM on October 17, 2005

There are products that allow you to dry clean at home. Dryel is the one that I remember being released with a fair amount of foofooraw a couple of years back.

howstuffworks has a lot to say on home drycleaning.

Disclaimer: I have never tried Dryel or similar products, and am pretty sure that home dry cleaning is far beyond my limited laundry expertise.
posted by flipper at 10:09 AM on October 17, 2005

ARGH! Dry cleaning at home. That's the 12,000th time I've done that today.
posted by AlisonM at 10:09 AM on October 17, 2005

I'm never satisfied with how clean I get items when handwashing. In the case of a $5 item, I'd be tempted to just throw the thing in the washer with cold water, and then hang it or lay it flat on towels to dry. It's really heat — hot water and dryer heat — that wrecks things. I have shrunk just one sweater by putting it in the washer. It was a dark brown chenille turtleneck.

Incidentally, it shrunk into a perfectly proportioned kid's size 8 or 10 sweater, so I gave it to my little niece. She now periodically asks me hopefully if I've shrunk anything else in the wash.
posted by orange swan at 10:14 AM on October 17, 2005

What exactly is the fabric? Shampoo may be an option.
posted by IndigoJones at 10:15 AM on October 17, 2005

I machine wash - and dryer dry - most of my theoretically dry clean only clothes. But it does really depend what it's made from, as others have said.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:15 AM on October 17, 2005

Dryel works pretty well but whatever chemical is in the drycleaning cloth you use will off-gas from your clothes like crazy for a day or 2. I'm not even super sensitive to smells, so it is *that* bad, in my opinion. When I do Dryel, I hang the clothes outside for another 24 hours before I'll wear them.

That said, you could probably Woolite + flat dry without a problem, unless it's Rayon.
posted by contessa at 10:23 AM on October 17, 2005

It's 100% rayon.
posted by konolia at 10:28 AM on October 17, 2005

I hand wash a lot of (my wife's) rayon clothing. I hate rayon because it wrinkles so badly (and hence never buy it for myself), but I've never had any problems. It sometimes bleeds, but you should hand wash each piece alone or with like colors anyway.
posted by tippiedog at 10:58 AM on October 17, 2005

Contessa, why would rayon matter? I've been washing rayon on gentle cycle in cold water for years; I can't remember doing tht with a rayon sweater though 'cuz I don't recall owning one of those. (Most are cotton and/or acrylic.) Is it being woven into a sweater that makes the difference?
posted by davy at 11:01 AM on October 17, 2005

I've laundry washed and dryer dried a lot of "dry clean only" clothing. The major difference that I could detect is that these articles do not last nearly as long as "normal" clothing (they tear/wear away). Other problems include colour-bleeding, exessive wrinkling, and linting (normally smooth fabric develop a fuzz or fuzzy materials get fuzzier).
posted by PurplePorpoise at 11:10 AM on October 17, 2005

Wash on gentle in cold. Air dry.
posted by pieoverdone at 11:22 AM on October 17, 2005

You say that it's a sweater. If that's true, then they probably told you to dry clean it because it's wool. If it is wool, then washing it with warm water, or sometimes even drying it with heat, will shrink it. Trust me, I was losing a lot of great sweaters this way; it sucks. But, again, if it's wool, there's nothing wrong with machine-washing it in cold water and machine-drying without heat. Once I started doing that, my sweaters stopped dying.
posted by koeselitz at 11:23 AM on October 17, 2005

Agitation will still shrink wool and other fibers, just not as badly as heat. A rayon sweater may be somawhat fragile, so I would hand wash in cool water and dry flat. I hardly ever dryclean stuff; it's pretty bad environmentally, and expensive.
posted by theora55 at 11:30 AM on October 17, 2005

Rayon can melt or kill in the dryer, so keep it out of there, unless your dryer has a no heat setting. Other than that, I'd machine wash it on gentle in cool water. Avoid bleach and laundry detergents that contain bleach or bleach alternatives.

Do I guarantee this won't wreck the sweater? Not at all. But it probably won't, and it'll be a whole lot cheaper than dry cleaning.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:42 AM on October 17, 2005

davy - my caution w/ rayon is because anytime that I personally have added water to rayon, I end up with unwearable, supershrunken clothes. The very briefest hand washing in woolite and cold water may be OK, but I'm never ever going to go there again, myself - hence my preference for Dryel, as smelly as it may be.

Back when I was working in a department store, it was pretty common knowledge that dry clean only tags = manufacturer covering their asses. A lot of supposedly dry-clean-only clothes (aside from structured suits, of course, or complicated dresses...obviously you would use some common sense here) were OK to wash in the machine and even dry in the dryer. The caveat was that if you did not follow the cleaning directions on the tag and bad stuff happened, well, it sucked to be you.
posted by contessa at 12:17 PM on October 17, 2005

You can't even wash chenille...all the fibers just fall out (this i say from experience). But you could probably dryel it.
posted by artifarce at 2:44 PM on October 17, 2005

I have never had rayon shrink. Of course, I always wash it in cold. I often run it through a normal dryer load, though -- never shrinks.

Anyway, in general Dry Clean Only clothes are fine with a cold water wash in Delicate mode followed by flat or line dry. Occasionally clothes marked Dry Clean Only will bleed color if washed in water, but that's pretty rare in my experience.

The main problems with rayon are that it wrinkles like a mofo and it isn't very long-wearing (as opposed to silk -- rayon is basically faux-silk, but silk wears like iron -- rayon, not so much).
posted by litlnemo at 3:02 PM on October 17, 2005

Just make sure not to use gasoline....
posted by interrobang at 4:11 PM on October 17, 2005