In today’s world our time is more precious than ever and one thing most of us have done is farm out traditional “home” chores that would otherwise take forever. One such chore is the mind-numbing task of cleaning our clothes; isn’t it so much quicker to just drop them off at the dry cleaners and have someone else do all of the work?

We may want to think twice about our dry cleaning though. Have you ever noticed that clothes which are repeatedly dry cleaned have a dingy film to them, lose their color, or smell kind of weird? This is because the chemicals used in the dry cleaning process are extremely harmful, not only to your clothing but to you. The main toxic substance is called perchloroethylene (perc for short) and is not only a nervous system depressant but has also shown to damage the liver and the kidneys. Who needs that on their clothes! (not to mention on their skin when they wear the clothes!) And of the 35,000 dry cleaners in the United States only 15% of them use alternatives to perc?

There are alternatives, however, so don’t think you have to go back to washing with rocks in a stream anytime soon. One alternative is called GreenEarth, while this was once touted as the saving grace of the dry cleaning industry as greener standards emerged it is now under fire for causing cancer in animal tests and harming the liver (the main ingredient is a silicone-based solvent). 

The other alternatives are liquid carbon dioxide, which has shown the most promise through comparative testing with other methods, and wet cleaning. Wet cleaning basically uses biodegradable/nontoxic formulas and water pressure to get clothes clean. We like these last two methods… not only because they are gentle on the earth and us but also because they work!

Even better… try to wear clothes several more times before you clean them. Many things like wool, heavy cottons, and even some synthetics can hold up well with multiple wears without loosing their spiff or taking on unpleasant smells. For suits, sweaters, and heavy pants you can also try some squirts of water and essential oil (we recommend lavender) from a spray bottle - this keeps them smelling good!

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 7th, 2007 at 3:48 pm and is filed under Healthy Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.