Educate me on the subject of laundries, dry cleaners and sending out clothes to be cleaned

In My Humble Opinion
1

Even when I worked I never used laundries or dry cleaners much. And since I’ve been retired, it’s been ages since I sent anything out.

But I want to talk about dry cleaners and places that wash and iron shirts and give them back to you on hangers. Do any of you use such places regularly? I’m guessing people who still work in offices–especially men who wear suits–do sent out shirts and such to be laundered and ironed.

(Aside: my mother was never one for Life Advice, but she did tell me, “When you get married, don’t wash and iron his shirts–send them out!” And she was a penny-pincher.)

Here’s the thing: I took four plain white shirts to a dry cleaning establishment two days ago. I said, “These are for laundry, not dry cleaning.” The counter person said, “The shirts will have to go to ‘dry cleaning,’ because they are shirts. But they will not clean them with chemicals, they’ll use soap and water.” Huh? I didn’t understand, but I said okay. Can anyone explain this?

I got a text message today that they are ready to be picked up, and they cost $10.00 EACH to do! Does that sound normal? It’s been forever since I took shirts to the cleaners but I think I’d remember if they were that much. For a Don Draper kind of guy who goes through five shirts a week, that’s $200 a month. Most people don’t dress up that much any more, I know, but some do. In Texas in the summer, you probably can’t get away with wearing a shirt twice.

So those of you who regularly send plain shirts out to be done, do they go to a dry cleaning place, a laundry place, do they get washed and ironed? Bring me up do date on the prices and protocols. (And mention where you live-- part of the country, big city, etc.)

I do remember that women’s shirts–and women’s clothes in general–often cost more at the cleaners than men’s. Is it because women’s buttons are on the other side? Dunno.

2

The last time I regularly sent out dry cleaning, I had a suit-and-tie job in Springfield, Illinois. That’s been at least two decades ago, so maybe things have changed.

“Laundering” and “dry cleaning” are just industry terms indicating which chemicals they do or do not use. Yes, laundering = soap and water, like you do at home. But they’ll press it and put it on its own hanger in a plastic cover, so there’s that. I remember paying more like $3-5 per, but again, two decades ago. I’m not in a position to say whether or not $10 is steep. Seems so to me, but my job requires jeans and a t-shirt, so who knows.

Truthfully, I think you’d be better off hitting the Goodwill then paying for regular dry cleaning. Or for the ones that can be laundered, do them yourself an buy an iron.

And yes, women’s clothes cost more to have professionally cleaned. More delicate fabrics, more complicated stitching, etc. I doubt it has anything to do with the placement of the buttons.

3

Ten dollars each seems expensive. I have a couple of nice shirts I have laundered after I wear them with my suit, weddings and funerals. It is only about four or five dollars. I have them laundered with no starch. I imagine they either drycleaned yours or charged you more since you are a women. Women’s clothes cost more to launder then mens. It isn’t fair but that is what they do.

4

My family ran one for years. $10 for a shirt seems a bit much unless you wanted something special done. If they had told me they would still only dry clean them at that price (and yes, get the price before leaving the clothes), I would have just left.

If you just want simple laundry and fold, that should be possible unless the shirts themselves have instructions that call for something different. A lot of places at least used to offer bulk laundry and fold for some price per pound. More to have them pressed, of course, but not $10 per shirt. I’d have expected something closer to that for all 4 shirts (plus or minus a few dollars depending on the place), and I do live in Texas (suburban Houston area).

5

I don’t send out laundry. I do send out dry cleaning of things that need dry cleaning; dress slacks, suit pants & coats, etc.

$10 for a pair of men’s dress pants or $15 for a suit coat are about right around here.

I do see people bringing in a pile of ordinary water-washable laundry to be done. I don’t know what that costs, but at least around here something not far from $10 per shirt to wash and press sounds plausible. Maybe $8 would be more sensible.

Bottom line: It ain’t cheap.

6

Man here. I use Dry Cleaner Valet. I pay about $2.90 per laundered/pressed shirt, and about $5.50 if a shirt is thicker material and needs special handling.

7

I remember news reports a decade or two ago about the higher cost of laundering women’s shirts. I think one local news consumer advocate even had women bring in shirts identical to those brought in by men to see if they charged more.

8

My wife usually drops off dry cleaning for both of us. I wonder what they’d charge if she told them it was all mine.

9

Holey moley! What part of the world do you live in? Big city?

Their main website is in Georgia. Prices are great!

My shirts were just over $9 each. I also included three simple cotton dresses and they were $12 each. The counter person said if I dropped of stuff on Tuesday and also printed the coupon from their website, I’d get a few dollars off each item.

We don’t have a huge selection of cleaners/laundry services here. This is not a “corporate” city. This is definitely a jeans & t-shirt town, even at work.

There are great wash and fold laundries, and I’ve used them for comforters and blankets. I don’t need someone to do my every day clothes, i.e., jeans, t-shirts, towels, sheets, and/or underwear. I do one load of laundry per week in the washer/dryer on my floor.

ETA: Just looked at the website for the cleaner I used. With a coupon, a laundered shirt is $4.29 (July coupon). That’s a hell of a discount. I guess I’ll need to keep checking their coupons if I plan on bringing them anything else.

10

My wife used to have me bring in piles of her clothes for dry cleaning. Not sure why she became more content with home laundering on gentle with air drying.

Related question. How many times do you wear the same shirt or pants until you launder it?

My wife is generally one wear then in the pile. I tend to wear multiple times as long as they pass the whiff test and are not visibly soiled. I just rehang.

11

I’ve been having my shirts laundered and pressed for years because I’m too lazy to bother doing it myself. Typical prices for shirts are $4-$5 per nowadays, though some shirts may require special handling depending on material. $10 seems more in line with dry cleaning required (e.g. silk shirts).

12

Remember when there used to be ‘1-Hour Dry Cleaners’ (or ‘In By 10, Out By Five’)? I miss those. If I need something dry cleaned now, I have to go to Bellingham and it takes a week.

13

I still do it occasionally. It pays to shop around; my current place is $3/shirt, but there are other places that are $10.

Men’s shirts are typically laundered. I take them to “The Cleaners” who knows what to do; if I told them to dry-clean the shirts, they would, but that’s not what you do with shirts. A cashmere sweater or something, or a suit jacket, would be dry-cleaned. But shirts? They go through a washing machine and pressed with an iron, just like at home.

The info you got about dry cleaning with soap and water doesn’t make much sense. Dry cleaning doesn’t use water, that’s the point.

14

I have to wear a pressed dress shirt every day (male). I pay $2.95/shirt at the local place and it comes back washed, dried, pressed, and on a hangar.

I consider ironing one of the circles of hell, so worth every penny.

Suburb of Boston.

15

Yes; metro Atlanta. The really nice thing is that they pick up and deliver from your home; so convenient. Those prices include that “valet” service.

16

That sounds way overpriced to me - I looked around my area and the prices were about $3.50 to $4.50 a shirt in Queens NY. But I also noticed that some places had a minmum fee of $30 or so - is it possible that you ran into something like that?

17

BTW, this gift link is for a New York Times article from almost two years ago to explain the costs involved in running a dry cleaning and laundering shop. It breaks down the costs involved in laundering a dress shirt for which the shop charges six bucks but makes only thirteen cents in profit. It’s part of an occasional series with other installments on why a haunted house or a dozen red roses cost what they cost.

18

Depending on the item, two or three. Also depending on the weather. If I’ve been walking in the hot sun, maybe only once. In the winter, if I’m inside and not sweating at all, then three-ish.

I object to you calling yourself lazy over this. It’s something you choose not to do. There are people who are in the business of doing it, and you can afford to use their services. Not a damn thing wrong with that. There are people who do yard work, clean houses, cut hair, give manicures, do your income tax, groom your dog-- all of which presumably a person can do for themselves but choose not to. It’s not lazy if you choose to use others’ professional services.

Yeah, I know that. I didn’t make myself very clear.

When I said:

I took that to mean that the shirts would have to go to The Dry Cleaning Department (hence the single quotes around the words ‘dry cleaning’ – single, because they were inside the double quotes of the entire speech she made) because they were shirts. I’m thinking it might have to do with the ironing process-- I don’t know. They would have to go to the area where things are dry cleaned, but my shirts would be laundered. And they were in fact washed with soap and water-- it said so on the tag when I picked them up.

Reading everyone’s replies, $10 per shirt or even $7 with coupon is high.

As I recall, a shirt that has been professionally laundered and pressed can go through a gentle wash in the washing machine and come out looking pretty good. We’ll see.

You probably have lots of laundries in Queens and lots of people who need/want their clothes laundered and/or dry cleaned. The demand in San Antonio is probably a tenth of what it is there. Or even less.

This dovetails perfectly with the article

posted by @Dewey_Finn. Thank you! Very interesting.

From the article:

“The humble cotton button-down helps power New York City, through its presence in practically every office in town.”

Competition, don’tcha know.

Ignorance mightily fought today! :+1:t3:

19

Note in that not-quite two-year-old article it cost six bucks to get a shirt laundered in NYC. So the ten bucks that you were charged seems really high. There may be lots of competition in NYC but there are also unusually high costs.

20

Won’t argue with that.