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Dry Cleaner pressed my shirts with collar stays in... - Page 2

post #16 of 28
10/23/10 at 8:28am
stubloom
are you kidding?

when you are paying $.99-2.50 to have a shirt wahed and pressed, you are lucky to get it back with out unwanted wrinkle in the back of the fused collars and cuffs.
most basic laundry services don't stretch out the collars and cuffs. and when they break buttons, you are lreally lucky if one, they are replaced, and two, replaced with an extra button from the tail of the shirt, and not some crappy clear plastic button.

removing and replacing collar stays?
that is a perc, when you are pay $4.50 and up for hand laundry

Carl
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post #17 of 28
10/23/10 at 11:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by stubloom View Post
The best way to salvage your shirts is to remove the collar stays, mist the collar with water and re-iron the collars yourself. Taking them back to the same cleaners is a waste of time. They'll probably return them to you in the same condition you received them in the first time.

But I must disagree with Cant kill da Rooster who believes that it's not the responsibility of the dry cleaner to remove and replace your collar stays.

When you drop off or send your shirts to a "professional shirt laundry" your'e entering into a "contract" with the cleaner to use their very best skills to restore your shirts to as close as original condition as possible -- if not better than original condition.

Not removing and replacing your collar stays (and, as a result, leaving collar stay impressions) is an abdication of their basic responsibility to restore your shirts to original condition. I'd go even further: removing and replacing collar stays should on the list of shirt laundry quality standards at every dry cleaner.

So next time you drop off or send your shirts to a "professional shirt laundry" ask them for a written list of their shirt laundry quality standards. Bet you'll find that they don't have a written list. Not only that, but I'd bet you'll find that there are no verbal quality standards either.

Here's an example of a published list of quality standards for shirt laundry:

http://ravefabricare.com/true-quality-cleaning/2010/6/29/a-true-quality-cleaner's-shirt-laundry-standards.aspx

Website: www.ravefabricare.com

Daily blog: www.truequalitycleaning.com

Nonsense. Just remove them yourself.
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post #18 of 28
10/23/10 at 1:13pm
It may be nonsense but the overwhelming majority of the 50,000+ shirts we launder every year come in with collar stays. I'd have to believe that this experience is fairly consistent across all shirt laundries. Stu
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post #19 of 28
10/23/10 at 1:26pm
OP, I covered this in another thread a while back... just take a q-tip and rub hydrogen peroxide solution on the burned area, followed by lemon juice, then wash in the machine. It worked for me. I was royaly pissed off since I had told the cleaner explicitly to iron "around" the stays to avoid this, but they totally ignored me.
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post #20 of 28
10/23/10 at 9:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Threadbearer View Post
No. There are only a few different sizes of collar stays. Collect a pair in each size and keep them on your dresser. (I keep mine in a box with my cuff links and tie bars.) When you get dressed in the morning, insert the stays in the collar. When you get undressed in the evening, remove the stays and put 'em back in the box.

If you are using a good quality cleaner, send the shirts with the stays removed and you should get them back with new stays inserted.

After several years of this you can begin selling stays back to the cleaners.
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post #21 of 28
10/24/10 at 11:11am
If you use the clear aluminum stays, they are so thin that you will not notice if the cleaners pressed them (make sure to order the extra rigid). The only problem is that they are a bit costly to replace, if they fall out while at the cleaner.
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post #22 of 28
10/24/10 at 12:22pm
Over the years, this happens more often then I'd like it to, since it is easy to forget to take out the stays, but I don't get my shirts starched and most of the time there is no imprint. If there is an imprint, just take the shirt back to the cleaners and they will wash it again and it should look fine. If you tell them what happened, you can probably get it redone for free. I wouldn't try to fix it yourself. In the scheme of things, shirts are like tires. They wear out and get damaged by all sorts of stuff, including damage at the cleaners (like messed up collars and broken buttons). The only way to avoid this is to search out a high-end cleaner in your area (that hopefully isn't prohibitively expensive) or wash and iron the shirts yourself. One last tip. You can avoid the collar stay problem by buying button downs next time.
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post #23 of 28
10/24/10 at 12:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by stubloom View Post
It may be nonsense but the overwhelming majority of the 50,000+ shirts we launder every year come in with collar stays. I'd have to believe that this experience is fairly consistent across all shirt laundries.

Stu

Stu
no disrepect, but you are sadly mistaken.
most of the dry cleaner/ laundries in the USA employ people who may not speak english. May or may not be working legally, and are most likely earning minimum wage.

obviously, your service is more expensive, I would guess that your employees are better trained and are payed more then the average, shirt presser.
Many Korean dry cleaners barely speak english let alone spanish. so who is training the staff?
this statement is not meant to be racist, just obvious.
.
I am lucky that i have two local dry cleaners that I use. both do an excellent job for $2.25 per shirt. do I expect them to remove collar stays? no.
your customers have been trained to not worry about collar stay removal

Carl
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post #24 of 28
10/24/10 at 1:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Will View Post
If you are using a good quality cleaner, send the shirts with the stays removed and you should get them back with new stays inserted.
If that's the standard for a "good quality dry cleaner," then I have never seen one in my life. And aside from your post, I've never heard of one, either.
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post #25 of 28
10/24/10 at 1:47pm
^^^This sort of service certainly isn't available in my neck of the woods, or anywhere I've lived.
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post #26 of 28
10/24/10 at 3:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Will View Post
If you are using a good quality cleaner, send the shirts with the stays removed and you should get them back with new stays inserted.

After several years of this you can begin selling stays back to the cleaners.

Will, this is both brilliant and cunning. Is this how you finance your bespoke adventures?

To the OP, you won't be able to iron out the imprints, it's simply humanly impossible for you to bring to bear the kind of pressure a machine press can unless you're the Incredible Hulk in which case you've got other problems with respect to caring for your shirts. Simply take them back and show them what happened and have them re-press the collars sans stays.
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post #27 of 28
10/24/10 at 4:30pm
remove collar stays before giving to cleaners.
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post #28 of 28
1/4/12 at 2:22pm

As far as I know Stu charges $9 to laundry a shirt.  So for that price I would expect my stays to be replaced with the golden ones biggrin.gif

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