Month: May 2021

Wedding dresses hold treasured memories and are one of the most complex items for dry cleaners. Delicate fabrics, beads and lace all present challenges so they need a cleaner with extensive experience. Whilst most dresses have a dry clean only label, if you’ve added beads or had them altered in any way, dry cleaning may not be suitable.

Deciding where to go to is complex. So, to help, we provided some information on the cost of cleaning your wedding dress in either our Peterborough and Stamford shop.

At Peters’ Cleaners we have nearly 60 years of experience in dry cleaning wedding dresses – even those without care labels. Both our shops are open 6 days a week and all cleaning is done at our Lincoln Road cleaning hub.

The first thing we do is look at each dress carefully. We will call you if we think plastic beads will melt or lace may come apart to discuss the best cleaning process. Mud, alcohol and other stains need careful pre-treating. We don’t use harsh chemicals as the fabrics are delicate.  If dry cleaning is the right process we clean the dress on its own on a delicate cycle, often in a bag to ensure no damage from friction of other fabrics loosening any embellishments.

After cleaning we go over it with a fine toothcomb to ensure every mark is removed to the best of our ability. If marks remain we put hand treat them and if necessary clean again. Our attention to detail will give you confidence that we give the best service.

Our turnaround is 4 weeks, but we will contact you with updates having conducted our 4 processes to thoroughly clean your wedding dress.

We do offer a press only service if you want to give your wedding dress a quick spruce up before the big day.

All wedding dresses are folded and packaged in a handmade, breathable box with acid free tissue paper. Boxes come from The Empty Box Company and ensure the dress staying in pristine condition. Ensuring the box is breathable is essential in wedding dress preservation because otherwise the dress will discolour and turn yellow. However, we do provide a £20 discount if you choose not to have your dress boxed.

Not only that, but we can clean veils, wedding shoes, bridesmaid dresses, and mother of the bride outfits. For more on how we clean wedding dresses see our Wedding Dress service page.

We are a month into lockdown as a result of COVID-19, a virus that has changed our daily lives. With a vast majority of the population spending their days at home, many are taking advantage of this extra time. Some are choosing to complete DIY projects or household tasks that might have fallen to the wayside pre-lockdown.

Many of us have opted for picking up paint tins and refreshing the walls, but with paint now in short supply; it may be time for you to look at getting your curtains cleaned, to give your room that ultimate new look. Most households in the UK have some form of curtains to help block out sunlight, reduce heat loss, promote privacy or purely for aesthetic value. Despite how common they are, however, they are not easy to clean and can suffer from several issues.

It is common to encounter unlabelled curtains, especially if curtains are bespoke. The main issue for a dry cleaner is that there is no guidance on the best way to treat the curtain, and some problems may arise if the fabric is not colourfast or prone to shrinking. Peters’ Cleaners has nearly 60 years of cleaning experience but asks clients to sign a disclaimer if they want curtains cleaning that do not have a care label.

Shrinkage:
By far, the most common issue faced by dry cleaners is shrinkage. The release of tension inadvertently set into the textile during manufacture is what causes shrinkage. Only the textile manufacturer can control tension in the weaving process and thus how much relaxation is likely to occur. The British Standard states that some relaxation is inevitable and allows a 3% shrinkage. In the event this happens, Peters’ Cleaners can use steam to stretch the fabric back, so it’s always worth checking with us.

Sunlight damage:
Curtains will invariably encounter some level of sunlight damage during their lifetime, and dry cleaning is the perfect medium to reveal this. Effects can range from fading, which can result in vertical banding to the lining or curtain to ‘shredding’ of the curtain or lining due to rot caused by sun damage. Plastic backed ‘blackout’ linings are particularly likely to suffer damage due to generally being hung in sunny windows, and the adhesive attaching the plastic coating to the lining degrades during dry cleaning.