Every once and a while Arrow will assess on our blog, the history of a garment that didn’t survive the cleaning process at another cleaner and give an analysis as to what happened. The purpose for this is to help make our customers more aware of the difficulties sometimes encountered in dry cleaning and the importance of choosing a knowledgeable, high quality company.
This garment is a ladies black polyester jacket with a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) inner film coating. The care label states: “dry clean only” with no International code symbols. During drycleaning in perchlorethylene (perc), the PVC softening agent dissolved and the coat lost its softness. The jacket now appears stiff, puckered and crinkly.
Who’s responsible? The manufacturer is responsible since the coat was not able to withstand the recommended care instructions without severe texture change. This jacket should be returned to the retailer or manufacturer.
Had Arrow processed this garment we would have anticipated this problem and cleaned the garment using lower power cleaning solutions. This problem and the resultant hassle of returning the garment, may have been avoided.
This case history is courtesy of the Dry Cleaning and Laundry Institute.
