Out Spot
This post may be completely irrelevant to those of you who live in far flung places, (I'm thinking of the people who check in frequently from places like Bangladesh, Kenya, and El Salvador.) and those who don't pay a lick of attention to taking care of their clothes, but I feel so good about this trivial pursuit that turned out well that I'm going to write it anyway.
I made a passing reference here to a patch of intractable grease spots which I discovered on my skirt at Shane's wedding. Shortly after that, something went very wrong on laundry day, when a pen or marker must have been washed and dried along with my best pastel dresses and some of Hiromi's shirts. Most of the best clothes had fairly insignificant spots, but one of my newest Sunday dresses had an ink spot as big as a grapefruit on the side of the skirt. It wasn't completely solid, but there were also other spots elsewhere. I remembered that hairspray dissolves ink, and tried that on the spot. The major effect seemed to be making the ink easier to smear into a solid stain.
The grease spots didn't budge any more when I tried to remove them here at home than they did when friends tried to help me at the wedding. Even Goo Gone didn't work. I had read up on what to do for each of these kinds of problems and knew that the dress that came out of the dryer with ink stains had the disadvantage of being being heat set. My hopes were fading fast.
Then I remembered professional dry cleaners. I have so seldom used their services that I was slow in thinking of them. I wrote a note to pin to each dress describing what I thought the stains were and what I had already done to them. Hiromi dropped them off. The lady who took them said she didn't know if it would be possible to clean them.
About a week later, Hiromi picked them up and brought them home, perfectly cleaned and pressed. I was so relieved I acted completely giddy.
Now I smile whenever I look at those dresses, instead of frowning. It was money well-spent.
I made a passing reference here to a patch of intractable grease spots which I discovered on my skirt at Shane's wedding. Shortly after that, something went very wrong on laundry day, when a pen or marker must have been washed and dried along with my best pastel dresses and some of Hiromi's shirts. Most of the best clothes had fairly insignificant spots, but one of my newest Sunday dresses had an ink spot as big as a grapefruit on the side of the skirt. It wasn't completely solid, but there were also other spots elsewhere. I remembered that hairspray dissolves ink, and tried that on the spot. The major effect seemed to be making the ink easier to smear into a solid stain.
The grease spots didn't budge any more when I tried to remove them here at home than they did when friends tried to help me at the wedding. Even Goo Gone didn't work. I had read up on what to do for each of these kinds of problems and knew that the dress that came out of the dryer with ink stains had the disadvantage of being being heat set. My hopes were fading fast.
Then I remembered professional dry cleaners. I have so seldom used their services that I was slow in thinking of them. I wrote a note to pin to each dress describing what I thought the stains were and what I had already done to them. Hiromi dropped them off. The lady who took them said she didn't know if it would be possible to clean them.
About a week later, Hiromi picked them up and brought them home, perfectly cleaned and pressed. I was so relieved I acted completely giddy.
Now I smile whenever I look at those dresses, instead of frowning. It was money well-spent.
posted by Mrs. I at
5:28 PM
2 Comments:
As I recall, that wasn't quite the phrase in Macbeth. :)
By
Anonymous, at 9/20/2008
What a helpful post! My daughter has a pink dress with an unidentifiable spot. I waffled as to whether it's worth sending to the cleaners but I think I'll give it a shot.
By
Anonymous, at 10/05/2008
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