Any silk garment with the Circle P rather than the Circle P underlined should be regarded as incorrectly labelled.
Such an error in labelling may also affect the response of the dyes and the garment make up to the drycleaning process. For this reason I recommend checking a silk garment labelled in this way very carefully before cleaning.
All silk items are potentially sensitive to abrasion and mechanical action and therefore the P symbol should be underlined indicating that the item should be drycleaned using a reduced/gentle cycle as should any delicate or fragile item.
To reduce mechanical action, machine loading should be reduced by 50% or more when cleaning delicate items.
Drycleaners need to understand that simply putting the silk in a net bag and cleaning it in a normal load with robust items will not protect the garment from the effects of mechanical action. If it then suffers chafing and abrasion damage, I believe that the cleaner should take responsibility, irrespective of the care label.
To ensure that you have sufficient time available to classify such items correctly, I would recommend that drycleaners do not accept silks and high value items for an express or same day service.
An additional charge is often made for such garments and I believe this is important as there should be a clear relationship between the price charged, the nature of the garment and the time needed to do the job.
