Should I leave my dry cleaned clothes in the plastic? [closed]

Question

My first job (in high school) was in a dry cleaners. The owner impressed upon us the fact that the packaging was a part of the "system" for taking the absolute best care of your clothes. He would tell is that people who ripped off the plastic were "throwing away years on the lives of their sweaters" and encouraged us to keep the plastic on.

Recently a friend of mine, however told me the exact opposite- that the bags trapped harmful chemicals on the fabric that would damage the fibers.

So, whom should I believe in this binary dilemma? Plastic on or off for the good of clothes? And for goodness sake, will someone please think about the children!

Answer 1

Oddly, I believe your friend has it right.

The dry-cleaning process is very similar to standard washing with water, except for the fact that instead of water, they use some sort of solvent blend designed to break-down various chemical structures and/or disperse them into the surrounding liquid, which is then extracted & filtered out of the solvent through filters and such. In a typical dry-cleaning, the solvent-extraction process is ~99% efficient or better. (meaning, 99% of the solvent is reclaimed for re-use) Which means that almost nothing is left behind on the garment when finished. What little remains is not going to be kept in the garments by a non-air-tight plastic baggie.

Those chemicals can also cause damage to the fabric and/or dyes over-time, which is why the dry-cleaning process tries to remove as much of the solvents as possible. As a general rule, the more aggressive the solvent, the better job it can do at actually 'cleaning' the clothing... but more aggressive cleaning can result in damage to the clothing. Even some of the plastic-bags themselves can cause the clothing to discolor over time.

According to "Arrow-Care",

... the plastic bags are meant only to protect your clothing while transiting from the drycleaner to the home.

That simple plastic bag can help keep the clothing clean from various sources such as dust, microbes, accidental spills and various other sources... but beyond the obvious 'less-cleanings,' a plastic bag won't keep the clothes from deteriorating over time.

Much of the details can be found on wikipedia.