Problems with common themes

5 February 2014



Richard Neale responds to some of the concerns raised in a letter from an LCN reader


What went wrong

Analysing the causes

Everyday we see a growing volume of complaints about poor results from drycleaning but examining these in detail reveals several common themes.
This month's article takes a more detailed look at two of the problems that are frequently brought to the attention of the main trade and technical organisations: Delicate velvets with irremovable marks and colours that bleed. It also explains one cause of greying.
Such issues have been highlighted in a letter to LCN from an experienced drycleaner reader and come, not from one single garment but from a long succession of garments and textiles.
The frequency of such problems is so serious that many cleaners feel under pressure, not from genuine technical challenges but from problems that could have been avoided with a little more care and communication between those concerned with a garment's appearance and the people who look at its technical quality.
The problem starts with the poor links between the technical department and harassed professional buyer who travels the globe seeking the "must-have" designs for the next fashion season, on which the retailer's success (or survival) may depend.
A touchy-feely assessment and estimation of the "wow!" factor are not sufficient to make a viable decision on all aspects of a garment.
Even in the best chain store systems, there are breaks in the links between the artistic buyer and the down-to-earth garment technician with the ability to gauge durability in wear and (hopefully) drycleaning. These gaps are all too often discovered by the drycleaner, when the black and white garment comes out black and grey or the silk velvet dress looks as though it has been struck by measles after a single wearing.
When these faults are interspersed by a run of complaints about greying of whites and pastels (even in garments with no contrasting panels) then the cleaner can feel hard done by.
In a recent report in the Daily Mail, another cleaner was mystified by the appearance (from nowhere) of grey marks on a white Armani jacket. The cleaner's technical report was pretty much consigned to a footnote in the story but the technologist had suggested humidity in the cloth during storage as a probable cause.

SPLASHED: Water splashes have permanently marked this acetate velvet dress

 

Dye bleeds in contrasting garments


Why bleeds occur
Cleaners have become understandably nervous about accepting garments with contrasting panels at anything other than "owner's risk" despite the uncertainty of any legal protection that this condition might afford them. Yet it is difficult to see what else the cleaner can do.
There are three main reasons for such a proliferation of dye bleed complaints in cleaning.
Poor dye recipes: Dyes with components that are inexpensive, but are unlikely to stay on the fabric when exposed to substances such as perc, may be used on short garment manufacturing runs. Here the buyer's technical specification is unlikely to cover colourfastness. Such garments will frequently be sold to outlets where the owner buys on feel and appearance with scant thought to performance in use and in drycleaning.
Poor fixation: This will affect even a very good dye recipe if the conditions in the dye bath are not held for long enough or the environment is not able to fix the dyes properly. As a result the dyes will stay on the fabric during garment make-up and normal wear, but they are unlikely to withstand drycleaning, even in a very mild solvent such as cyclosiloxane.
Poor washing-off after dyeing produces fabric that loses all of its loose dyestuff in the first clean, yet when the cleaned fabric is then tested for colourfastness, it performs perfectly. In effect the cleaner has performed the last stage of the dyeing process by rinsing off the surplus dye. In this way the evidence of poor manufacture has been destroyed and this fault is the most difficult to prove.
These different faults have the same result. The dark part has bled onto a lighter area and a customer complaint is inevitable. Interestingly where such a bleed has damaged an entire load the manufacturer often settles the claim without argument but when it just affects one garment, the maker seems to return the problem to the cleaner.

What can be done?
I feel that three steps could address the problem and help cleaners.
1. Education: Retailers and manufacturers need to understand what the drycleaning process entails and learn how to control dye bleeds by using simple wording in the buying spec and by making simple checks before cutting out from new bales of cloth.
One-day training events in a central location for the major chains and design houses need to be supplemented by one-day regional events for retailers, from the chain store customer care department to the boutique owner.
These could be taken by The Guild of Cleaner and Launderers (GCL), the Textile Services Association (TSA) and private sector technologists.
2. Concerted representations: Could this be another task for GCL and TSA, using links through the UK Fashion and Textiles Association and its constituent organisations? Often the problem to be addressed is lack of understanding, not apathy.
3. Advice to single unit drycleaners: They need to know how to deal with these problems. Should they be reported to TSA as they arise, for block reporting to the culprits? What is the legal position with the owner's risk form? Can a manufacturer be realistically named and shamed or even "blacked" by the main cleaning organisations?

PATTERN BLEED: The black pattern has bled on to the pale background

 

Greying as a result of humidity in the cloth
In a humid atmosphere, a natural fibre such as cotton or wool will absorb moisture until it has regained sufficient for the rate at which it dries out to equal the rate at which it picks up even more. In a typical home it will absorb about 5%, so that a coat weighing 1kg can carry about 50g of water. If left in the boot of a cold car, the same coat could easily absorb 150g of water without feeling damp but when the coat is drycleaned, the moisture acts as a "magnet" for every trace of dirt in the solvent, leading to irreversible greying.
The GCL syllabus on drycleaning practice says that the cleaner is responsible for ensuring that natural-fibre garments are thoroughly dried and aired before machine cleaning. Knowing how to treat such materials is part of the cleaner's craft skills but it is not reasonable to expect the consumer to have the same knowledge.

Handling velvets with knowledge and skill

Cleaning velvet fabric, including removing stains, can give varying results, often because the cleaner uses the wrong techniques or the customer has unrealistic expectations. The correct approach depends on the type of velvet.
Cotton velvet is robust and can be worked on from the face side to give excellent results in stain removal. To avoid colour damage, the cleaner should test the reagent by applying it to a hidden area, leaving it for ten minutes, then flushing off and feathering dry. If there is no visible colour damage, the reagent can be used on the stain for the same length of time as in the test.
Working from the face side will minimise the risk of removing tufts of velvet loops. Flushing and feathering dry after treatment will avoid any permanent marking in the pile.
Acetate velvet, silk velvet and short-pile viscose velvet will suffer cracking and distortion of the pile if a water-based liquid gets onto them. Pre-treating a mark on one of these fibres will normally make the problem worse so do not attempt this.
They can be drycleaned in the normal way on a delicate cycle and some staining might be removed by the mechanical action and by the solvent's chemical action - perc will be the most effective on stains and cyclosiloxane the least. However, this is not a great deal of help, because even when the staining has been removed, the fibres in the stained area will be permanently kinked by the cracking effect of the water in the original staining and the marking will look almost as bad as it did when the garment came in. There is a strong case for explaining the limitations and lowering the customer's expectations. If possible this should be done before accepting garments and, if not, certainly before cleaning starts.
Long-pile viscose velvets can look almost like artificial fur and they suffer from the same limitations as the short pile velvets, described above. However, it is sometimes possible to recover pile distortion on a long-pile viscose velvet by wetting the entire panel (exactly to the edges of the seams around the panel), brushing the wet pile in the direction of the nap and then leaving it still and absolutely flat overnight to dry naturally. The dry pile can then be brushed and it will be found that the great majority of the marking has been removed and the garment is wearable again. Prospects for success are well over 50:50, but they are never 100%.
Acrylic velvets are thermally sensitive and very vulnerable to pile flattening. This can occur during the drying stage of the machine process so to avoid problems set the thermostat (in the air from the cage airflow) to no more than 50C.
However, any kind of contact with the pressing equipment can also cause pile flattening, so it is essential to keep these materials out of the press area. Just resting a pile of velvet curtains on a warm press will leave a permanent impression of the buck.
Modacrylic velvet is used for inherently flame retardant curtaining but it is even more temperature sensitive than acrylic. The drying thermostat must be set right down to 40C and the same restrictions on resting fabric on a finishing table or a press buck apply.
Valued fabrics
Consumers value the luxurious sheen and quality feel of velvet fabrics so they are very much in demand for high quality (and sometimes very expensive) designs.
However, water and water-based stains cannot be removed from some velvets so on these types the cleaner can never be sure of obtaining, consistently good results on these fabrics.
All that the cleaner can do is give very realistic expectations to the consumer, who is otherwise going to be very disappointed when the results of cleaning a fine silk velvet do not match those of cleaning other designer goods.

FLATTENED: This acrylic velvet has been flattened by exposure to high temperature

 

 

velvet
bleed
Splash


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