Why does my dry cleaner charge more for silk and linen?
In the dry cleaning industry, the practice of charging more for certain fabrics is called “upcharging”. When cleaners upcharge, they are passing along an increased cost of production to their customers. Some fabrics are very difficult to work with and take significantly more time, labor and skill to process properly. For this reason, most cleaners upcharge for clothes made from silk or linen. Both fabrics are made from natural fibers and present unique challenges for the cleaner.
Successful stain removal is a critical step in the production process for cleaners. Many stains are removed by the dry cleaning machine and require no additional resources from the cleaner. A group of stains, called stubborn stains, require the attention of a stain removal specialist. The art of removing stains is called “spotting” and the person doing the stain removal is called the “spotter”. The spotter is typically one of the highest paid employees in a dry cleaning plant. To remove them, stubborn stains often require a combination of stain removing solutions and a significant amount of mechanical action.
Silk and linen are notoriously prone to stubborn stains. For silk in particular, because of its extremely delicate nature, when attempting to remove the stains, the spotter is limited in the types of stain removing solutions he can use and the amount of mechanical action he can apply. The risk of dye loss and fabric damage during stain removal is very high. It routinely takes multiple cycles of spotting, machine cleaning, and re-spotting to safely remove stains from silk and linen. This process requires a high degree of skill to avoid damaging the fabric.
Removing wrinkles is another critical step in the production process for cleaners. The removing of wrinkles is called “finishing”. Most garments require a combination of machine pressing and hand ironing to achieve the desired finish. The more hand ironing required, the more time and labor expense goes into finishing. Finishing silk and linen requires significantly more hand ironing than most fabrics. Linen in particular is very challenging. Some wrinkles in linen become so “set” that they are virtually impossible to safely remove. Linen holds wrinkles so well, that manufacturers sometimes intentionally give a wrinkled finish to their linen fabric. They intend for the garments never to be pressed!
Tags: linen upcharge, silk upcharge, upcharging
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April 24, 2010 at 5:44 PM
I am not convinced that additional labor required explains the price differentials between linen, silk and other materials.
First, the claim seemed to be that because linen & silk were “natural” fibers, they present particular challenges. The most popular fabric around, cotton, is natural and yet there is no surcharge for cleaning cotton. So “naturalness” isn’t an explanation.
Second, there was a major discussion of stain removal being more difficult from silk & linen, and that stain removal itself is labor-intensive. If so, why is there no surcharge for removing stains, period? I have been to MANY dry cleaners and there is NEVER a surcharge for stain removal (I’ve even had them re-do the process when the stain did not come out and was not charged extra for the re-do). Similarly, the charge for linen & silk cleaning does not change if there are stains (at least it never has for me). So I don’t think this explains anything about the price differential.
The “finishing” aspect might hold some water as an explanation, except that 1) I have had linen/cotton pants that are no different to iron than all cotton ones, and yet they get charged the higher linen rate. I have also had pants made of cotton that were hard to iron (the specific nature of the fabric seemed to be the issue here) and these were not charged a higher rate for cleaning/pressing.
I am convinced that, once upon a time, it may have been more time-consuming to deal with linen & silk, but with rare exceptions, those days are over. However, the pricing differences remain.
April 24, 2010 at 6:58 PM
Thanks John! These are all valid and very insightful points. I agree with all of them. Traditional dry cleaning pricing, in general, does a very poor job of matching labor costs with pricing, especially when it comes to stain removal. It seems that a great deal of what the cleaners upcharge for is simply what their customers will let them get away with. It is extremely rare, but I have on occasion seen dry cleaners attempt to charge extra for stain removal. Their customers didn’t let them get away with it for long. In each case, the cleaner eventually backed down. No matter how soundly their pricing is based in logic, if its untraditional, the customers will vote with their feet. Unless the vast majority of cleaners move away from traditional pricing at once, the customers will simply stop doing business with the ones that do.
October 16, 2011 at 1:47 AM
I can only speak from my own experiences as a 3rd generation dry cleaner, but as crazy as it may seem, our process (especially in regard to pressing) has changed very little over the years.
We have two silk pressers at our plant and they are always the last to be done for the day. Why? Simply because the detail in doing a good press job for garments such as silk take time. They have to slow down to make sure the garments look their best and they pass our inspection. And, I might add, a good silk presser is hard to find and we pay them well to keep them. Our lead silk presser has been with us 13 years. Also, while “silk” is in the job title, they actually press anything that requires attention to detail, including silks, linens, rayons, beaded garments, etc.
As far as stains, yes, stain removal in silks and linens can be a challenge. Silk is very delecate (as compared to cotton) and very easily damaged, we only allow our most skilled workers to process garments made of silk. While linen is not as fragile as silk, it is certainly less hardy than cotton and requires more time and skill to process.
October 25, 2011 at 12:51 PM
Great post Angie! I agree with all your points. Thank you for sharing with us!