31 Jan 09 Your Dry Cleaner’s Double Standard

Women are charged more for dry cleaning services. Don’t fume, find a better way. While it is true that the practice is unfair it is also true that we have options for keeping our clothes clean and holding onto more of our cash. Try some of these tactics to stem or stop the unfair flow of your dry cleaning dollars.

• Examine labels before you make a clothing purchase. Go for easy care (read machine washable) items whenever possible.

• Determine if dry cleaning is a suggestion or a mandate before you shell out big bucks. If dry cleaning is not necessary for the care of your fabric, consider gentle hand or machine washing.

• Investigate home dry cleaning products such as Dryel. These products work with a special bag and fabric-softener like cleaning sheet, and your dryer to freshen your clothing. You can find home dry cleaning products in the laundry aisle of your grocer or local discount store. Dryel and similar products typically run around $10.00 and clean 6-9 pieces, a significant savings over dry cleaning costs.

• Negotiate with your dry cleaner for better prices. Politely mention your concerns around gender price differentials and ask that your cleaner offer comparable prices for comparable fabrics.

• Invest in a steamer. They are now widely available and priced affordably.

• Take advantage of savings and discount programs. Some dry cleaners offer discounts with pre-payment or a particular number of items.

• Pay cash. Unless you pay your credit card balance in full each month you incur additional costs in interest on top of your already exorbitant dry cleaning costs.

• Wear clothing items twice, instead of once before making a trip to the cleaner.

Dry cleaning costs can run as high as several hundreds of dollars each year. These costs are inflated by gender bias. Fight back and keep more of your cash with a few of the suggestions listed above.

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Nicole Soltau is the President and Founder of http://CreditUnionRate.com – The Leading Credit Union Directory Search, Find Join.

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Tags: Comparable Prices, Credit Card Balance, Dollars Each Year, Dry Cleaners, Dry Cleaning Products, Dry Cleaning Services, Dryel, Fabric Softener, Fabrics, Gender Bias, Gentle Hand, Grocer, Home Dry Cleaning Products, Laundry Aisle, Mandate, Price Differentials, Shell Out, Similar Products, Soltau, Steamer

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22 Jan 09 Steam Cleaning Vs. Dry Cleaning

There has always been a huge debate over which cleaning method is best for your carpet, steam cleaning or dry cleaning? In my 13 years in the carpet cleaning industry, I have been exposed to both sides of the fence, having worked for dry and steam cleaning companies.

“Shaw Industries” is the largest carpet manufacturer in the world, if you go to there site, they will suggest having your carpet steam cleaned. As far as I’m concerned, this settles the debate. Since they have to honor warrantees, they want the consumer to abide by there guidelines to keep losses down to a minimum.

Do you think they would recommend steam cleaning if they thought that dry cleaning would reduce the amount of claims? Steam cleaning has received bad press, which really started back in the 70’s when steam cleaning was just evolving into a popular cleaning method.

Carpet machines back then weren’t very efficient, leaving the carpet wet for 24 hours or more. Dry cleaning companies used this as a selling point for their services. Times have changed drastically, steam cleaning machines that are mounted in vans produce very hot water and are extremely efficient in water recovery, leaving the carpet dry in 4 hours or so.

If carpet cleaners use an extra dry stroke while cleaning, dry times can easily be less than two hours and with new extraction devices, the dry time can get even lower. So how do dry cleaning companies sell their services now? The same way they did back in the 70’s, through customer fear of having soggy carpet the next day.

This is simply not true! The fact of the matter is, sometimes steam cleaning can be dry before dry cleaning! Dry cleaning is inferior to steam cleaning in every aspect. It does a poor job of removing soil and it leaves chemicals in the carpet which can cause yellowing from the high ph.

I think more consumers should be aware of the facts and not let hype control their decision making when it comes to carpet cleaning. If more dry cleaning customers had their carpet steam cleaned, chances are, they would never go back.

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Tags: 13 Years, Carpet Cleaners, Carpet Cleaning, Carpet Machines, Carpet Manufacturer, Carpet Steam, Cleaning Carpet, Cleaning Companies, Cleaning Machines, Dry Cleaning, Dry Time, Fact Of The Matter, Hot Water, Hype, Poor Job, Shaw Industries, Steam Cleaning, Steam Machines, Vans, Water Recovery

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31 Jan 09 Your Dry Cleaner’s Double Standard

22 Jan 09 Steam Cleaning Vs. Dry Cleaning

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