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Alan Munro
Inner circle
Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
5425 Posts
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Posted: Dec 5, 2011 8:42pm
I thought I'd post about something that has saved me some cash. Good dry cleaners are getting hard to find. I even fired one after only giving them one try, because the jacket ended up with with foul smells coming from it after sweating. Those smells didn't come from me. I began spraying the inside of the jacket with white vinegar, and letting it air out, between wearings. I've cut my expenditures on cleaning my jacket by 75%. I still need to press my jacket, but I've cut those costs by steaming it when necessary.
Any other ways to cut costs when it comes to stage wear?
http://www.sneakymagician.com/
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Darkwing
Inner circle
Nashville Tn
1765 Posts
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Posted: Dec 5, 2011 9:37pm
Al,
I had the same experience. I had my tux and shirts cleaned for a stage show for a corporate client this last weekend and my shirt had this god awful smell when I took off my jacket after the show. I actually smelled me after taking the shirt off to see if it was coming from me; nope it was the shirt. I went ahead and threw the shirt away. Great tip.
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Alan Munro
Inner circle
Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
5425 Posts
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Posted: Dec 5, 2011 10:34pm
I don't take shirts or slacks to the dry cleaners. I can take care of that myself, although the ironing takes a while.
http://www.sneakymagician.com/
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Nak
New user
66 Posts
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Posted: Dec 5, 2011 11:31pm
Not that it's a "replacement" for a real cleaning, but in theater they'll often spray the costumes with a cheap vodka between performances to keep them fresh.
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Alan Munro
Inner circle
Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
5425 Posts
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Posted: Dec 6, 2011 12:39pm
The vodka sounds like it would work, although it would have to air out in order to work properly. I stick a light wire coat hanger inside the jacket, behind the lapels, in order to help the jacket air out. It opens the jacket a little, so that air can circulate, freely.
http://www.sneakymagician.com/
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Al Angello
Eternal Order
Collegeville, Pa. USA
10460 Posts
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Posted: May 5, 2012 9:36am
I take my shirts and pants to the cleaners every Monday morning, and there is no way I could get my clothes to look as good as a professional cleaner makes them look. When my jackets starts to smell like deodorant I get them cleaned. I charge a lot of money to do a job, and looking good is expected.
Al Angello The Comic Juggler/Magician
http://www.juggleral.com
http://home.comcast.net/~juggleral/
"Footprints on your ceiling are almost gone"
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Stevethomas
Inner circle
Southern U.S.A.
3562 Posts
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Posted: Jun 8, 2012 2:33pm
My wife (a Certified Professional Drycleaner...and has the certifications to prove it) says that the post drycleaning odors are probably the cause of improperly filtered drycleaning fluid. ALSO...depending upon how colorfast the jacket material is (I'm a hazmat guy/dangerous goods specialist), vinegar can bleach fabrics, so be careful with that. So can alcohol. Those storebought home cleaning systems (EX: Dryel) will do a fair job tumbling in a no-heat dryer setting. In a pinch, Febreeze works wonders, just use the regular scent and not some floral thing.
Steve
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Ekuth
Inner circle
1104 Posts
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Posted: Jun 17, 2012 4:32pm
I use Febreeze (or the generic equivalent) to freshen my vests and jackets after each performance, it definately cuts down on drycleaning costs. I haven't tried the "DIY" drycleaning kits though... not sure I'd trust my tails to that.
If I've got a stubborn smell (say after taking out of winter storage) I'll Febreeze and close up the item in a ziplock/space bag for about 3 hours. Does the trick nicely. Just don't forget and leave it sealed in there!
Any spots I just hit with a damp washcloth and air dry.
"Magic is found neither in the mind, nor the eye; but in the heart."
http://www.christophe-magic.webs.com
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Alan Munro
Inner circle
Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
5425 Posts
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Posted: Jun 18, 2012 11:03am
I've actually had problems with bleached armpits, from taking jackets to the cleaners. The vinegar causes no such problem and I allow the stuff to evaporate off, sometimes turning the jacket inside-out to speed-up the process.
I used to use Febreeze, but I found that it didn't work nearly as well as white vinegar.
http://www.sneakymagician.com/
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Mary Mowder
Inner circle
2000 Posts
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Posted: Jun 22, 2012 2:36am
I find the smell of Fabreeze noxiously strong. The vinegar smell goes away but the Fabreeze lingers.
-Mary Mowder
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Zombie Magic
Inner circle
I went out for a beer and now have
6498 Posts
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Posted: Aug 11, 2012 5:07pm
Quote:
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On 2012-06-22 02:36, Mary Mowder wrote:
I find the smell of Fabreeze noxiously strong. The vinegar smell goes away but the Fabreeze lingers.
-Mary Mowder
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Mary, that's interesting. I thought the vinegar would have lingered.
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Alan Munro
Inner circle
Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
5425 Posts
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Posted: Aug 15, 2012 1:55pm
Vinegar evaporates nicely. It kills bacteria, eliminating odors. Fabreeze doesn't seem to eliminate odors, much - mostly covers them up.
http://www.sneakymagician.com/
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ronnyman
New user
Indiana
56 Posts
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Posted: Sep 15, 2012 4:43pm
I've lived by Febreeze but end up smelling too feminine for my liking. Thanks for the tips on vodka and vinegar. Should work out nicely because, like you said Alan, good dry cleaners-or just any dry cleaners, are harder to come by.
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thatmatt
New user
51 Posts
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Posted: Sep 18, 2012 1:38pm
Vodka for keeping the costumes fresh? I have never heard about this method so far. It seems pretty clear why grandpa reeked of vodka during his final years. And all this time, we thought he was an alcoholic...  )
Seriously now, I think that Fabreeze is the best product for freshening my costumes. I have tried vinegar, and wasn't satisfied with the smell. I may have a bit of an allergy to it. Thanks for all the great tips though.
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bigcheese
New user
Sacramento, CA
55 Posts
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Posted: Oct 27, 2012 5:57am
Great tips here, thanks to all for adding their ideas to a very useful thread. On a related note I have to share the terrible moment I discovered my mother had added moth balls to the closet without telling me. It was many years ago but the memory is burned onto my brain. The smell too!
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Al Angello
Eternal Order
Collegeville, Pa. USA
10460 Posts
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Posted: Oct 28, 2012 5:17pm
To use Fabreeze in place of a professional dry cleaner is a sure sign of a $50 a show magician. I take a bag of dirty clothes to the professional dry cleaners every Monday morning because in my business looking good is an important part of the job, and shame on you cheapo magicians.
Al Angello The Comic Juggler/Magician
http://www.juggleral.com
http://home.comcast.net/~juggleral/
"Footprints on your ceiling are almost gone"
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Alan Munro
Inner circle
Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
5425 Posts
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Posted: Nov 5, 2012 8:57am
Count yourself fortunate. The good dry cleaners, in my area, are retiring at an alarming rate.
http://www.sneakymagician.com/
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Wizzard
Loyal user
221 Posts
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Posted: Nov 5, 2012 11:17am
You might try this, it works very well.
http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=home+dry+cleaning+kit&tag=googhydr-20&index=aps&hvadid=8121602979&hvpos=1t2&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1035647929193126878&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=e&ref=pd_sl_9ce9qhor3b_e
John
"Just the Facts,...... Just the Facts"
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SleepNow
New user
51 Posts
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Posted: Feb 6, 2013 6:37pm
Dry cleaners typically send shirts, socks, underwear etc. that people bring in, out to a laundry, or they wash them in a washing machine. Shirts are not dry cleaned. Pressed, starched and steamed yes, dry cleaned no. Steaming clothing does a lot to restore the just cleaned look and smell of clothes. Vinegar should be used in a spray bottle and diluted with water. For shirts, turn them inside out and rinse them with laundry soap (arm pits) then throw them in the washing machine with a few ounces of white vinegar added to the water, (according to Heloise). Not sure what Dear Abby would have to say about this. No animals were harmed in testing.
I would think straight vinegar would make you smell like a pickle once your body starts to heat up and reactivate the vinegar?
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Al Angello
Eternal Order
Collegeville, Pa. USA
10460 Posts
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Posted: Feb 12, 2013 7:22pm
SleepNow
I don't know about you, but when I get home from doing a job I peel my shirt off, and I am not about to spray, steam, perfume, and iron the old shirt to get ready for my next show. On a decent weekend I do 4 shows, and I always carry a fresh shirt.
My wife would laugh at me for charging big bucks to do a shows, and doing it looking like a slob.
There are about six Korean dry cleaners within 5 miles of my house that charge under $2 for a washed, unstarched, ironed shirt on a hanger. What planet do you guys live on?????
Al Angello The Comic Juggler/Magician
http://www.juggleral.com
http://home.comcast.net/~juggleral/
"Footprints on your ceiling are almost gone"
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Alan Munro
Inner circle
Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
5425 Posts
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Posted: Feb 17, 2013 1:26am
Quote:
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On 2013-02-12 19:22, Al Angello wrote:
There are about six Korean dry cleaners within 5 miles of my house that charge under $2 for a washed, unstarched, ironed shirt on a hanger. What planet do you guys live on?????
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GR, Michigan. Certain services are in short supply here, if I want the job done properly.
http://www.sneakymagician.com/
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Al Angello
Eternal Order
Collegeville, Pa. USA
10460 Posts
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Posted: Feb 17, 2013 8:05am
Alan
Koreans have taken over all the produce, finger nail, wig, convience store, and dry cleaning businesses around here. You need more Korean immigrants.
Al Angello The Comic Juggler/Magician
http://www.juggleral.com
http://home.comcast.net/~juggleral/
"Footprints on your ceiling are almost gone"
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SleepNow
New user
51 Posts
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Posted: Mar 5, 2013 11:22pm
Al. I did not say to not have your shirts laundered. I just said that dry cleaners don't normally Dry Clean Shirts. Ask the dry cleaner if he dry cleans your shirts or Launders them. I think you will find (if they are honest with you), that shirts are laundered. A friend of mine's wife was a manager of a dry cleaning store for about 20 years and her mother managed another dry cleaner from the time my friend's wife was 14. So, she worked around dry cleaning for about 28 years. She told me that they do not use the dry cleaning process on shirts. Also, I was saying that after a shirt is washed, it is the steaming and ironing and starching that the dry cleaning store does that makes you think it was processed in the dry cleaning machine when in truth it was washed in a commercial washing machine.
I did a quick Google search for you and found this: (This whole thing is a quote).
1.Why are shirts laundered rather than dry cleaned?
Some folks who might not be that experienced with dry cleaners might think that it’s a one-size-fits-all policy that we have - that anything that comes into the store, we dry clean, because we are after all a “dry cleaners.” In truth, dry cleaning is only about half the business, from a numbers perspective. If you look at our main signage outside most of our stores, you will see that it actually highlights two things: dry cleaning and shirt laundering. And in fact, in terms of pure numbers, we actually do a higher quantity of laundered shirts in a given day than we have number of garments dry cleaned.
So what’s the difference? Well, as the term implies, dry cleaning is a process that doesn’t involve water, whereas shirt laundering is predicated around a laundry machine - just like the one at your home, except ours are larger and more powerful. So why, then, would you bring your shirts to the cleaners when it’s something that, seemingly, you can do at home? There are a couple of advantages to having your shirts done by a professional cleaner.
The first is that we are quite simply better at getting out stains. Our detergent is going to be more concentrated than the Tide or Cheer you get at the supermarket, and our spotting solutions - to get out specific stains or the most common enemy of shirts, perspiration and ring around the collar - are more potent than, for instance, Shout. Secondly, if you like starch in your shirts - we’ll get into that issue later on down the line - it’s a heck of a lot easier and better to get starch via our machines than via commercially available spray starch - it’s going to be a lot cleaner and a lot more uniform. And finally, and most importantly, is our shirt pressing. Shirts are going to have a lot of wrinkles when they come out of the wash. Either you can iron them yourself, which is really time-consuming, or you can have us press them. Using a machine Shirts pressing is fast - it’s the primary reason why shirt prices can be lower than dry cleaning prices - and a lot faster than if you were to have to iron all your shirts yourself. That doesn’t even get into the free bonuses you get, like free replacement of any broken or missing buttons.
So what does shirt laundering actually mean for you as a customer? Quite simply, laundered shirts are less expensive than if you were to dry clean the same shirt. And that’s basically how the entire dry cleaning industry has always worked. Cleaners don’t actually make much if any money on shirts - the margins are really low. Shirts are largely about getting customers in the door. We want to do good work on your shirts, but what we really want is to do good work on your shirts so that you also do your dry cleaning with us - because dry cleaned items are where all cleaners, us included, really make their money.
end quote).
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Al Angello
Eternal Order
Collegeville, Pa. USA
10460 Posts
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Posted: Mar 11, 2013 3:12pm
OMG
You obviously did not read my post? I had no idea that someone would take such a radical misinterpretation of my words. Just because I take my dress shirts to the dry cleaner does not mean that I force the dry cleaning lady to dry clean my shirts. I get my shirts washed, pressed, and put on hangers for under $2 each, as I previously stated.
Give me a break
Al Angello The Comic Juggler/Magician
http://www.juggleral.com
http://home.comcast.net/~juggleral/
"Footprints on your ceiling are almost gone"
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SleepNow
New user
51 Posts
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Posted: Mar 14, 2013 5:51pm
Sorry you thought "would take such a radical misinterpretation of my words". I just wanted to let people know that Dry Cleaners don't normally Dry Clean shirts. I am glad that you are getting them done so cheap. Alan might want to try a commercial laundry instead of a dry cleaner, especially if he is paying $5.00 or $6.00 per shirt.
Also, repeated washings are what cause clothes to wear out. I almost always wash all of my clothing after one wear. However, my wife will often wear something for an hour or two and then hang it back up to wear again. Her clothing is always clean and fresh.
One of your previous posts did not mention washing only cleaning at the dry cleaner. So, I thought you were having everything dry cleaned.
Sorry if you were offended.
Your last post was a good post with very good information. Why end it with "Give me a break"?
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Alan Munro
Inner circle
Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
5425 Posts
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Posted: Mar 20, 2013 2:45pm
Quote:
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On 2013-02-17 08:05, Al Angello wrote:
Alan
Koreans have taken over all the produce, finger nail, wig, convience store, and dry cleaning businesses around here. You need more Korean immigrants.
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The place that left my jacket smelling like hell was Asian owned. It's no guarantee of quality. I checked online reviews to find a decent place in my area - only one place has stellar reviews, in the entire city.
http://www.sneakymagician.com/
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Al Angello
Eternal Order
Collegeville, Pa. USA
10460 Posts
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Posted: Mar 23, 2013 9:29am
Alan
I had no idea that the Mexican, Guatemala, Korean, Palistinian, Pakastani, Indian, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Russian, Jamacian, Chinese, Tailand, Indonesian, Australian, Egyptian, Saudi, Iraqi, Jordanian, Lebanese, Columbian, Venesualian, Brazilian Equadorian, Peruvian, Argentenian, Canadian invasion has not hit Michigan yet. Are there only baloney sandwich on white bread with mayo eating protestants in Michigan? Do you mean that you can't buy an authentic taco from an authentic Mexican in Michigan? I realize that you have a fool for a governor, but Michigan seems to me to be like visiting the past.
Al Angello The Comic Juggler/Magician
http://www.juggleral.com
http://home.comcast.net/~juggleral/
"Footprints on your ceiling are almost gone"
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T. Durden
New user
72 Posts
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Posted: Mar 25, 2013 2:33pm
I always have one of those DIY kits with me on the road - it means you can get back to a hotel late after a gig, freshen up a suit in the middle of the night at the hotel's guest laundry, and not have to worry about finding a dry cleaners shop late at night (or very early the next morning before heading to the next gig). I still regularly get my stuff professionally cleaned and pressed, of course, but I enjoy packing light when I'm traveling.
Recommend grabbing that stuff, even if for an emergency. Laundry isle of Walmart and most supermarkets.
The props you own... end up owning you.
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Alan Munro
Inner circle
Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
5425 Posts
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Posted: Mar 26, 2013 3:36pm
Quote:
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On 2013-03-23 09:29, Al Angello wrote:
Alan
I had no idea that the Mexican, Guatemala, Korean, Palistinian, Pakastani, Indian, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Russian, Jamacian, Chinese, Tailand, Indonesian, Australian, Egyptian, Saudi, Iraqi, Jordanian, Lebanese, Columbian, Venesualian, Brazilian Equadorian, Peruvian, Argentenian, Canadian invasion has not hit Michigan yet. Are there only baloney sandwich on white bread with mayo eating protestants in Michigan? Do you mean that you can't buy an authentic taco from an authentic Mexican in Michigan? I realize that you have a fool for a governor, but Michigan seems to me to be like visiting the past.
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We have almost every ethnic group you can imagine in Grand Rapids. I used to take my car to a Vietnamese shop. Now I take it to a Bosnian shop. I go to El Sombrero, still run by the Chavez family, for great Mexican food. But, mediocrity rules in most types of businesses in Michigan.
If the Governor were burned at the stake, tomorrow, I'd have to bring my camera. That would mean that the citizens would be starting to get their hope back and grew a pair.
http://www.sneakymagician.com/
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Al Angello
Eternal Order
Collegeville, Pa. USA
10460 Posts
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Posted: Mar 27, 2013 9:52am
Alan
Sometimes I get carried away, and I'm glad you have a sense of humor. I guess the large influx of immigrants is a bicostel thing. How the hell did a blue states like Michigan get a Nazi for a governor?
Al Angello The Comic Juggler/Magician
http://www.juggleral.com
http://home.comcast.net/~juggleral/
"Footprints on your ceiling are almost gone"
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