We run a dry cleaning business. So you’d expect us to say there aren’t any.
There are. And being honest about them is more useful than pretending otherwise.
Traditional dry cleaning uses perchloroethylene. Perc, as it’s known in the trade. It works extremely well at dissolving oils and soiling from fabric without water. It also comes with baggage.
The Health and Safety Executive classifies perc as a hazardous substance and regulates its use in UK facilities closely. The concerns around it are primarily occupational — people who work with it daily, not customers who collect a suit twice a year. But the environmental picture is harder to dismiss. Perc is a persistent pollutant. Historically, poor disposal contaminated soil and groundwater near dry cleaning sites.
The industry has moved considerably. Modern facilities run closed-loop systems — solvent is recovered and recycled, not released. Alternatives to perc exist: liquid silicone, hydrocarbon solvents, professional wet cleaning. Some dry cleaners have switched entirely. Worth asking, if it matters to you.
The smell on freshly cleaned clothes — that chemical note — is perc off-gassing. It disperses. Hang the garment in fresh air for a few hours and it’s gone.
No point dressing this up. Dry cleaning costs more than putting something in a machine at home.
In London, it costs more than dry cleaning in most other parts of the UK. Rent, rates, and overheads in EC1 and the surrounding postcodes are high. That feeds directly into what you pay at the counter.
For people with wardrobes that lean heavily on dry clean only garments — suits, coats, silk, cashmere — the annual spend adds up. That’s a genuine downside.
The honest reframe: for garments that can’t safely go in a machine, the comparison isn’t dry cleaning versus home washing. It’s dry cleaning versus replacing the garment earlier than you would have needed to. That shifts the maths considerably.
This one surprises people.
Dry cleaning too frequently damages the clothes it’s meant to protect. The solvents break down wool fibres gradually with each cycle. A suit cleaned six times a year ages faster than one cleaned twice.
The assumption that more cleaning equals better care is wrong. For most dry clean only garments, the goal is reducing how often you need a professional clean — not increasing it. Airing after every wear, occasional steaming, regular brushing. These habits are what make dry cleaning sustainable over a garment’s lifespan.
We cover the right frequency in detail here:how often should you dry clean a suit.
This is the downside people don’t talk about enough.
Dry cleaning quality varies enormously. The process involves inspection, pre-treatment, machine cleaning, and professional finishing — all requiring skill. A dry cleaner who skips inspection, applies generic treatment, and rushes the finishing returns a garment that’s technically been through the machine. Whether it’s been properly cleaned is a different question.
Damage happens. Wrong solvent on the wrong fabric. Incorrect temperature. A garment that comes back with bubbling in the jacket front or distortion in the lining that wasn’t there before. This is a failure of the provider, not the process — but it’s a real risk.
Knowing your dry cleaner and trusting their work matters more than most people realise. Cheapest and most convenient aren’t always the right criteria.
For wool suits, cashmere, silk, structured coats, and most formal garments — dry cleaning done correctly and infrequently is still the right approach. There’s no safe home alternative that achieves the same result.
The downsides are real. The chemical concerns are legitimate, though regulation has improved. The cost is higher in London. Over-cleaning causes its own damage. And not all dry cleaners are equal.
Work with those realities and dry cleaning is still the best option for the garments that need it. Ourdry cleaning service at Arlington Way in Angel has been running since 2013. Walk-ins welcome.
For customers collecting garments occasionally, the risks are minimal. Residual solvent on clothes is very low and disperses quickly when aired. The health concerns around perc relate mainly to occupational exposure — people handling it daily in a professional setting.
Done too often, yes. The solvents gradually weaken fabric fibres with repeated cleaning. Two or three times a year for a regularly worn suit is the right frequency — beyond that, you’re working against the garment rather than for it.
That’s perc off-gassing. Hang the garment in fresh air for a few hours after collection and it disperses. If the smell persists after airing, it may indicate the garment wasn’t properly dried after cleaning — worth raising with the dry cleaner.
Yes. Liquid silicone, hydrocarbon solvents, and professional wet cleaning are lower-impact alternatives. Not all dry cleaners offer them. If environmental impact matters to you, ask before you drop off.
For garments that can’t safely be machine washed — wool suits, cashmere, silk, structured coats — yes. The alternative is home methods that risk permanent damage, or replacing garments earlier than necessary. Done correctly and at the right frequency, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
