Dry cleaners Independent dry cleaners - results
Dry cleaning results for independent shops
We visited 12 independent dry cleaning shops in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and asked them to clean identical wool-mix women's jackets stained with double cream, red wine and vinaigrette.
Instore service Only five of the 12 shops inspected the jackets and four asked what the stains were.
Stain removal Six shops were good or excellent for stain removal, but three were poor and struggled to remove the red wine stain.
Finishing Six were good and three excellent for shrinkage. Two were excellent for pressing but two were poor, with one stretching the jacket by nearly 4cm around the waist. None of the independent shops identified any problems with the cleaning when our shoppers picked it up.
| Independent dry cleaners results - no. of good or excellent shops visited | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brand | Price (£) | Distortion (shrinking and stretching) | Pressing | Cream | Red wine | Vinaigrette | Stain removal overall |
| Independents | 7.57 | 9 | 4 | 10 | 10 | 6 | 6 |
Using the table
We stained wool-mix women's jackets with red wine, double cream and vinaigrette and took them to be dry cleaned. When dry cleaners inspected the jackets and found the stains, we confirmed what they were. When they didn’t inspect the jackets before cleaning, we showed them the stains and told them what they were.
The price given in the table is the average cost of cleaning the jackets at twelve independent dry cleaning shops in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The scores for distortion, pressing, cream, red wine and vinaigrette show the number of shops, out of the 12 visited, that were good or excellent for each of these tests.
The stain removal overall score is made up of the number of shops, out of the 12 visited, that were good or excellent overall for removing double cream, red wine and vinaigrette. We use the lowest score for individual stain removal as the overall stain removal score, so to be rated as good or excellent overall for stain removal, a shop’s lowest individual stain removal score (for double cream, red wine and vinaigrette) would have to be good or excellent.
Shops that were good or excellent for two out of the three stains, and satisfactory for the third, wouldn’t qualify as good or excellent overall.
