I think it’s interesting how many grown-up men and women, even frequent dry cleaning customers, don’t actually know what dry cleaning is. I will come right out and confess that I’m not on any high horse here–I didn’t know myself until I started working at one. (And not immediately, either, it took a couple of weeks and some quality time with Wikipedia.) On the other hand, I had literally never set foot in a dry cleaners until I started working at one. Nevertheless, this widespread ignorance has led to some interesting common misconceptions among our customers.

Dry Cleaning Misconception #1: Dry cleaning is, well, dry.

The name is a little misleading, I admit. The “dry” part, or “sec” in the original French, does not mean “without liquid.” It means “without water.” Dry cleaning solvent (the stuff the clothes get cleaned in) is a non-water-based liquid which, with the help of spotting catalysts, can remove stains from garments which can’t safely be stirred around in hot water.

For the early history of dry cleaning (think middle ages), the popular thing to use for this was kerosene. Dry cleaners eventually got sick of their plants burning down, though, and I imagine the smell of the clothes wasn’t too hot either.

From the mid-twentieth century through the turn of the twenty-first, the most popular dry cleaning solvent was something called perclorethylene. There is now evidence to suggest that perc (I get to use the nickname because I’m in the industry) may be carcinogenic to people who are repeatedly exposed to it. (That’s not only us in the plant, but also you wearing the clothes.) So cleaners in the United States are required to switch to one of the growing number alternatives by, I believe it’s 2012. Not surprisingly, wet cleaning–which uses a carefully controlled temperature and timing to clean things that are normally not safe to wash in water–is becoming more widespread as well.

Now that you’ve had a completely unrelated history lesson, here’s the summary: clean it is, dry it ain’t.

Dry Cleaning Misconception #2: There is such thing as “chemical-free dry cleaning.”

I may get this more than the average counter person because I live in a hippie town, but every once in a while someone comes into the shop and asks if we do “chemical-free” dry cleaning. I always have to resist the urge to stare at them and ask them what exactly they think dry cleaning is.

Alas, my need to give good customer service is stronger than my desire to make fun of hippies, so instead I mention that our plant doesn’t use the cancer-causing solvent they may have heard about and politely suggest wet cleaning as an alternative. Never mind that water is as much a chemical as whatever they think they’re afraid of. I don’t have a lot of respect for people who are against something without understanding what that thing is.

Dry Cleaning Misconception #3: Dry cleaning is spot cleaning.

This comes up most often for purses or coats that have leather trim. We don’t recommend cleaning leather items in our solvent, and neither do most of the items’ manufacturers. Instead, we have a business relationship with a leather cleaner that doesn’t deal with the public itself. We take in leather items from our customers, send them to the leather cleaners, and tack on a markup for our trouble. Naturally, this is more expensive than normal cleaning, but also a whole lot safer for the piece being cleaned.

This leads to the situation where someone brings in a coat (about $10 to clean) with little leather straps or something on it, and learns that protecting those straps will bring the cost closer to $60. (It’s very common for the cost of cleaning a leather item to be higher than its purchase price.)

“Can’t you just clean this part here, where it’s stained?” the customer inevitably asks.

No, we can’t. I think people have an image of a little old lady hunched over the jacket, dabbing at stains with some magic dry cleaning potion that makes it as good as new. The reality is that your clothes, along with everyone else’s, go into a big machine that looks a lot like a regular washing machine. They swish around, get cleaner, get dry, and are removed and put in line to wait for pressing.

We can’t put only part of your garment in that machine. Either take the risk that your item is going to get damaged, or suck it up and pay to have it cleaned properly.

Dry Cleaning Misconception #4: Dry cleaning is miraculous.

Here’s a sad story:

A woman brought us her daughter’s wedding dress, which had been hanging in a closet for the ten years since the daughter got married. No one had noticed anything strange when it was put away, but when the mother took the dress out, there were light brown stains all down the front of the dress.

There’s no mystery here. Someone spilled a little champagne on the bride at the reception, which on her pale gown immediately became invisible. It was quickly forgotten about, and the dress was put away without being cleaned. Over the years, the sugars in the champagne stain changed color, and by the time anyone noticed, the window in which it could feasibly be removed was long gone.

Good customer service requires both optimism and honesty. We told the customer,

“We’re willing to try, and we may be able to improve it, but we don’t think this stain is ever really going to come out.”

We did, and it didn’t. The last I heard, the customer was considering having the whole dress dyed. It wouldn’t have helped; dyeing darkens all parts of a garment equally, even the ones that were darker to begin with. Pending advancements in dry cleaning technology, the dress is ruined.

Dry Cleaning Misconception #5: You need to dry clean items that are down-filled.

Nope. A gentle machine wash is fine, and will actually get it cleaner. The only reason you can’t just wash your comforter at home is that your washing machine and dryer aren’t big enough. Ours are.

There’s no story behind this one, I just thought I’d toss it out there.