So, what’s so bad about it, really? I’ve always just accepted the incompatiblity of dress suits and Maytags as axiomatic, like not washing your hair with a bar of bath soap, or not pitting bias-ply and radial tires on the same vehicle.
Does anyone have the Straight Dope on what would happen if I tossed the jacket and pants in to a washing machine, added Tide and set it for Delicate/cold water wash?
Well, if it’s a wool suit, be prepared for some serious shrinkage, in unpredictable directions. Wool shrinks when it’s agitated, so cold water doesn’t avoid the problem. I suppose you could hand-wash a suit, just gently working the suds through it. I’m not sure you’d ever get it pressed properly, however - I suspect it would be rumply forever.
Interesting, but I’m suspicious. Don’t dry-cleaning plants just ust huge industrial-sized washing machines (with cleaning solvents instead of soapy water) to clean the clothes we send them? How do they get around the wool + agitation incompatibility?
If its a polyster suit that says you can machine wash it, then it should be just fine.
Its not necessarily the cleaning process, but the pressing. Suit jackets are lined the lining wrinkles as well as the outer fabric. ironing is very difficult because the two fabrics require different tempertures. Dry cleaning doesn’t cause as much wrinkling, and the jackets are steamed on a man-shaped hanger. Pants you might get away with if you don’t mind the chore of pressing. They would be easier, but still not a job for a rookie.
Thank you for the responses, especially the cautious approval for pants-laundering from picnurse. It’s a pretty nice suit, even if it did only cost eight and a half bucks at the Salvation Army. I got bicycle chain grease on the right pants cuff, and I’m not looking forward to spending more on the cleaning than on the suit. kaylasmom got me a brand new steam iron last Christmas, so I think I’ll be up to the task of pressing the pants, but I believe I’ll defer to the experts on the coat.
Varsol (in some form) has been used as a dry cleaning solvent. It used to be readily available, and still is in some areas, although I gather in others it can be hard to find. I’d be inclined to use it on the grease stain. Sometimes laundry detergents don’t get grease out.
It’s not so much the material issues as such (you can carefully wash wool sweaters for example) but more construction issues. Modern business suits (male and female) often contain various complex synthetic linings and paddings to get them to hang and drape in attractive ways. These sewn in linings are not going to be able to take the pounding that a washing machine inflicts on clothes. The relatively more gentle process of dry cleaning and pressing nicely outlined by picunurse is the only way these clothes can survive to give reasonable service.
I do wonder, however, about how wool business suits and elaborate womens dresses were cleaned in the era before dry cleaning.
Before dry cleaning, they pretty much weren’t clean. They were brushed, perhaps beaten like a rug, maybe a little rubbing with soap to work on stains, and then they were pressed.
Yeah, they got smelly after a few wearings, but people didn’t bathe as much back then, either.
Let me add that if you have bicycle chain grease on your pants cuff, throwing it in the washer probably isn’t going to do the trick, regardless of anything else it does. Get a grease-cutting solvent cleaning aid. They still make them. Follow directions religiously. Prepare to treat more than once.
Also, many tailors will ask that you do not dry clean your suits. Ever, if you can help it. Supposedly, the process begins to break the suit down, thus shortening it’s life.
Ideally, you would be able to rotate your suits, wearing each no more than once a week, or less. Of course, that means you can’t spill anything on them.
Some men buy suits with two pairs of pants to make the pants last, but if you dry clean the pants without doing the jacket as well, the shades will not match over time.