Laundry and dry clean
Laundry and dry clean
Some garments arrive at a dry cleaner as a job. Others arrive as a problem someone is quietly upset about — a wedding dress with a red wine mark down the front, a grandfather’s coat that has been in a cupboard for fifteen years, a child’s christening gown that has yellowed. This is a collection of those jobs, and what they taught us about what is actually recoverable.
WashMate has two Sydney stores, in Surry Hills and Leichhardt, and this kind of work is the part of the trade we find most satisfying. If you have something you assumed was beyond saving, email photos to info@washmate.com.au before you give up on it.
A bride came in on a Monday with a full glass of red down the skirt of a silk gown, spilled at the reception two days earlier. Two days is not ideal — tannin stains oxidise and bind to fibre over time — but it is far better than two months. Silk rules out aggressive treatment, so the mark was worked in stages with acidic agents at controlled temperature, checking colour-fastness constantly. It lifted almost entirely. Almost is the honest word: under strong light you could find where it had been if you knew to look. She was happy; we were honest about the remaining trace before she collected it.
A wool overcoat inherited from a father, stored unwashed and unprotected. Two problems: oxidised body oils across the collar and shoulders that had gone yellow-brown, and moth damage along one sleeve where the wool had been eaten through. The oil marks came out. The moth holes did not, because holes are absence rather than staining — they need reweaving, which is a different trade. We cleaned and pressed it and told him where to take it next. He wore it that winter.
It would be easy to write only the wins. Some things genuinely do not come back: heat-set dye stains, bleach damage where the colour is gone rather than covered, fibre that has rotted from long-term perspiration, and holes of any kind. We would rather say that at the counter than take your money and hand back a disappointment. If something is not worth treating, we will tell you.
Specialist work like this is quoted after inspection. Wedding dress cleaning and preservation starts from $350, and leather and suede from $129 — see the full price list.
Most of the difference between a save and a write-off is decided before the garment ever reaches us. Blot, do not rub — rubbing drives the stain into the fibre and roughs up the surface of wool and silk. Use a clean white cloth so no dye transfers. Skip hot water entirely, especially on anything protein-based like blood, dairy or egg. Do not apply heat of any kind afterwards: no dryer, no iron, no hairdryer. And resist the internet remedies, because most of them are alkaline or bleach-based and will strip dye from anything coloured.
Then get it to us reasonably quickly, and tell us exactly what happened and when. A stain we can name is a stain we can target; a mystery mark has to be treated cautiously by trial, which limits how far we can push it.
Sometimes. Old stains are harder because they oxidise and bind to the fibre, but many can be significantly improved. Send photos and we will tell you honestly what we expect to achieve.
Heat. Putting a stained garment through a dryer or ironing over a mark sets it permanently. The second most common is storing garments dirty.
Yes. Wedding dress cleaning and preservation starts from $350, with the final price confirmed after inspection.
Not by cleaning — holes need reweaving, which is a specialist repair trade. We can clean and press the garment and point you in the right direction.
Email photos of the garment, the affected area and the care label to info@washmate.com.au for an approximate quote. Final pricing is confirmed after inspection.
Follow @washmate.sydney on Instagram for before-and-after transformations and garment care tips.
Tap below to book your pickup online, or send us a quick email and we will come back with a free, no-obligation quote.
