Case Studies - Shirts

Meeting expectations

Customers expect something special when they pay a professional to wash their shirts. Sometimes their expectations are realistic – the service should provide a high standard of stain and soil removal.

At times though, customers can be unrealistic about the result, especially if they expect the cleaner to restore a worn collar corner or replace fabric that has been removed by a cigarette burn.

With the right techniques, the cleaner can provide a service that delights the customer and makes the cost seem irrelevant.

Vegetables leave stains

Red wine, blackcurrant, beetroot and orange juice all contain vegetable dyes (which are natural colourings of plant origin).

When spilt on a shirt, they may dye the fabric and the stains cannot be removed by washing alone. They need to be decoloured using a tannin remover which acts like a very mild bleach, reacting with the stain without (hopefully) affecting the colour of the cloth. Testing the reagent before using is essential.

Some washing detergents contain sodium perborate or sodium percarbonate to generate hydrogen peroxide bleach in the main wash and these will remove red wine stains and similar vegetable dyes.

Watch out for sweat stains under arms

Perspiration staining at the underarm is generally removed by washing but it needs a careful pre-wash at or below 38C to soften the proteins in the stain first. If the marking is fresh then it may come away without damaging the dyes used on the fabric. But if it has been on the garment for a few days, the breakdown products (which can include acids or alkalis) will react with the dyes to leave a pale discoloured patch after washing. This result cannot be predicted and you will need to explain carefully (and tactfully) to the customer what has happened.

A case of poor dyeing

Some designer shirts and many market-stall garments are poorly dyed and this can bring a variety of problems. To produce strong vibrant colours, the makers often use direct dyes (which have no chemical bond with the fabric) and there is little or no wash-off after dyeing. When washed normally, such garments fade overall and the dye may be picked up by the rest of the load.

If you give them a gentle wash the colour will move around, leading to a patchy or blotchy result. The best test for poor dyeing is to apply a single water droplet to a hidden area and let it dry naturally. If you get a ring mark then the colour or finish has moved to some extent. If there is a pale patch within the ring mark, then expect very obvious overall fading and the risk of bleeding to other garments.

Inkspots need your skills

Washing is good for removing water-based food and drink stains, but is usually ineffective for solvent-based staining such as ballpen ink. This needs a good quality ink remover and a drycleaner’s traditional spotting skills. Test the reagent first on a hidden area of the shirt to make sure that it does not react with the dyes and then get to work.

Place a pad of clean white cotton cloth under the stain and apply the remover. If there is any tendency for the ink to spread you can either work over the vacuum gauze on the stain removal table or you can surround the ink mark with a thin line of glycerine. As soon as you have removed as much ink as possible, wash the garment to remove the final traces of stain and reagent.

Bleach warning

During counter inspection, the cleaner noted that this garment had been damaged by bleach and issued a polite disclaimer.

Bathroom cleaners, baby bottle sterilising fluid and hair preparations may all contain bleach. Once bleach has removed the colour, leaving a pale patch, the cleaner can do little to reverse it. Bleach marks are often mistaken for drink spills because (as seen here) the bleach may only affect one or two of the colours in a three-component dye recipe. For example, if it destroys the blue and yellow dyes the mark could look pink. If the yellow is removed then it could look green.