My job frequently requires that I wear a suit, and even when I get to go “business casual,” the tags in my clothes often say “dry clean only.” I have struggled to find a good dry cleaner, without success. I’ve primarily waffled between two dry cleaners, one near my former home and one located on the street level of my office building in the city. The former occassionally shrunk my clothes, but the people are friendly and always remembered me, and the latter is ridiculously expensive, no doubt due to its prime location.
Now that I’ve relocated, I’ve yet to find a close-to-home option, so when I had a few items to dry clean this morning, I went to the city cleaner. I don’t usually scrutinize the bill, but today I noticed that they charged me over a dollar more for a sweater than the posted price. Of course, being the frugal person that I am, I inquired. “It has silk in it, there’s an extra charge,” she replied. Of course it has silk in it! The reason my dry clean only sweaters can’t be washed at home is because they contain some delicate material, like silk or cashmere. So the takeaway is, the listed prices are only for pieces you could wash at home; if it’s dry clean only, it’s going to cost extra.
Then, of course, there’s the infamous extra charge for a woman’s shirt. It drives me crazy that cleaners advertise $2 to wash a shirt, but charge me $6 because it’s a ladies shirt. Something about it being harder to press because of the darts. For that kind of premium, I’ll wash and press my shirts myself.
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