Washing vs dry cleaning: How to choose the right cleaning method for silk, woollens and everyday clothes | Fashion Trends
Are you washing your clothes the wrong way? Find out which fabrics need dry cleaning and which can be washed at home (Picture credit: Freepik) Different fabrics need different cleaning methods, and treating washing and dry cleaning as interchangeable can damage colour, texture and garment life. Wardrobes are full of a variety of fabrics, each catering to a different occasion: cotton shirts for work, silk sarees for bridal showers, and woollen jackets for chilly days. Just as these garments serve different purposes, they also have different cleaning needs. If everything is lumped together into the washing machine, risks of damaging colour and texture may be serious.
You need to understand the difference between dry cleaning and washing. Otherwise, you risk shortening your clothes' lifespan. Deciding which clothes to wash at home and which require professional care requires due diligence.
Nishant Tripathi, founder and CEO of Dhobilite, a technology-enabled laundry and dry-cleaning business, walked us through choosing the right cleaning method for different fabrics and avoiding common mistakes.
Tripathi flagged the biggest laundry mistake: “We often treat washing and dry cleaning as interchangeable ways of cleaning clothes. They are not.”
In the end, the expert concluded by underlining the cardinal rule, "Before deciding how to clean a garment, check its care label. It may seem like a small detail, but the label usually tells you whether the garment can be machine washed, hand washed, dry cleaned, tumble dried or handled at a particular temperature. This is especially important for garments made from blended fabrics or those with special finishes. A useful rule is simple: when the label says professional cleaning is required, avoid experimenting at home."
Adrija Dey’s proclivity for observation fuels her storytelling instinct. As a lifestyle journalist, she crafts compelling, relatable narratives across diverse touchpoints of the human experience, including wellness, mental health, relationships, interior design, home decor, food, travel, and fashion that gently nudge readers toward living a little better. For her, stories exist in flesh and bones, carried by human vessels and shaped through everyday endeavours. It is the small stories we live and share that make us human. After all, humans and their lores are the most natural and raw repositories of stories, and uncovering them, for her, is akin to peeling an orange under a winter afternoon sun. Always up for a chat, she believes the best stories come from unfiltered yapping, where "too much information" is kind of the point. A graduate of Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi, and an alumna of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, Adrija spends her idle hours cocooned with herbal tea and a gripping thriller, scribbling inner monologues she loosely calls poetic pieces, often with her succulents in attendance. On lazier days, she can be found binge-watching, for the nth time, one from her comfort-show holy trinity: The Office (US), Brooklyn Nine-Nine, or Modern Family. Dancing by herself to her peppy playlists, however, is an everyday ritual she swears by religiously.Read More
