Taken to the cleaners

20 March 2008

Standards at dry cleaners are alarmingly poor, with less than one in ten returning clothes in an acceptable state, reveals undercover research by Which?*

The consumer watchdog sent 48 identical skirts to dry cleaners across the UK. Each had red wine, double cream and vinaigrette stains, which experts say are easily removable**, yet:

• Just four out of 48 skirts came back in an acceptable condition
• Thirty-one cleaners failed to clean off all the stains
• Nine cleaners that did remove stains shrank or stretched the garments
• Four failed to press the skirts to an acceptable standard
• One skirt was returned with more stains than it started with
• Another shop shrank the waistband by almost 3.5cm.

Customer service was often poor, as well. Just ten of the 31 shops that failed to remove the stains owned up when returning the garment, and none mentioned other problems that had occurred.

The four to pass the test were two independent dry cleaners and two branches of Persil Service.

Neil Fowler, Editor, Which?, says:

“It’s not cheap to get clothes dry cleaned, yet we got shoddy results from the vast majority of the cleaners we tested. Most didn’t even own up when they’d failed to properly clean the clothes we’d taken for cleaning - they just kept quiet and charged us anyway. The industry has vowed to clean up its act after seeing our report – and so it should.”

Currently, anyone can open a dry cleaners; there’s no law requiring staff to be trained or for service to be regularly inspected. Following Which?’s exposé, the Textile Services Association (TSA)*** has pledged to carry out anonymous spot checks. Which? will be watching to see whether this drives up standards, and advises people to check whether the dry cleaner they visit belongs to the TSA.

Notes to editors

Which? is the leading independent consumer champion in the UK, providing up to date, impartial, expert information on thousands of products and services to help make individuals as powerful as the organisations they have to deal with in their daily lives. To find out more visit www.which.co.uk

The full article “Taken to the cleaners” appears in the April 2008 issue of Which? magazine. For further information, the full article, a copy of the magazine or an interview, please contact Nicola Frame.

* Which? bought 50 identical dry clean-only skirts with labels that clearly showed what they were made of and how to clean them. Which? applied three small (25-50mm) stains to each (red wine, double cream and vinaigrette) and measured the skirt. 48 skirts were taken to dry cleaners including branches of the three main dry-cleaning chains (Johnsons Cleaners – 11 branches, Morrisons – 9 branches and Persil Services – 10 branches) and 18 independent shops. One skirt was sent to an independent cleaner who was known to follow the correct procedures and Which? kept one skirt to provide a comparison.

There were six tests: stain removal, distortion (shrinking or stretching), pressing, drape (how clothes ‘hang’), odour and matting and felting (a hairy look from poor cleaning). Each test had a five point scale from useless to excellent. For example, a score of three (acceptable) for stain removal meant stains were largely removed, and a score of five (excellent) meant all stains were completely removed.

** When pre-treated with an off-the-shelf professional dry cleaning stain removal kit – something that all dry cleaners should have and know how to use.

*** The three chains and many independent dry cleaners are members of the Textile Services Association (TSA), the trade association for the UK dry cleaning industry.

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