AVAILABLE EARLY 2007 . . . .

Wet cleaning ? What's that then ?

Wet cleaning is a professional garment cleaning technique that uses detergents and water. Professional cleaners in the 1930's and 40's would wet clean around a quarter of the garments that came to them, mainly the natural fibres, the rest were dry cleaned using solvents. During the 50's however the introduction of more specialised and non flammable solvents allowed just about all fibres to be dry cleaned and the wet process gradually fell out of use.

With environmental and health & safety concerns over the use of solvents wet clean technology has been undergoing a revival and professional cleaners are once more recognising the importance of this process. Trained cleaners are now able to wet clean many garments that would have typically been dry cleaned and the advent of more advanced wet cleaning machines means that even silks, woolens, linens, suedes and leathers are now able to be cleaned without solvents.

The modern wet clean machine has a much larger drum than a domestic machine, this allows for a much gentler action and is combined with a near infinite variation in mechanical agitation, water temperature, drying temperature, water quantity and detergent dosing levels. This in turn allows the machine operator to match the cleaning process to the needs of the fibres. For example, a wet clean machine can be set to rotate the drum as slow as 6 revolutions a minute - compared to a more likely several dozen times a minute of a domestic washing machine. The amount of spin and levels of water remaining can be closely controlled, as can the humidity during the drying cycle - a domestic machine spins out what it can then 'steams' the rest out by applying a lot of heat, again within the confines of a small drum - a process guaranteed to destroy many garments.

Trained wet cleaners can also use other 'tools' to ensure optimum results. There are additives that prevent colour bleed, mild bleaching detergents to remove tougher stains, fabric softeners and finishes can be added to restore crispness - it is in fact a most flexible cleaning system.

As more and more people are becoming concerned we are investing heavily in this new process and will update this page when we have more news. In the mean time you may like to visit the link below for more information on both 'wet' and 'dry' cleaning.

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