1. Dry cleaning wears out clothes. - False

The International Fabricare Institute has never seen any indication of a dry cleaning process wearing out fabrics. However, ground-in dirt and soil are abrasive and, like sandpaper, cause deterioration of your garment. A perspiration stain not removed soon enough can actually eat through fabric.

2. Shirt laundries discriminate against women. - False

Shirts are worn by both men and women. The style and cut of a shirt doesn't change radically from year to year. A shirt is a shirt. Automated equipment designed to press shirts cuts down on labor costs. Blouses are usually worn by women but are sometimes worn by men, e.g., pull over shirt w/front button plackets, which have little consistency. These shirts contain various trims, delicate fabrics, ruffles, pleats, tucks, etc., and require hand ironing, hence the higher charge. Blouses are labor-intensive, and we don't care who wears them.

3. All stains come out if a professional cleans it. - False

Most, but not all, stains can be removed by an expert stain removal technician, such as the technicians at LIONHEART CLEANERS. Stains from some dyes, medicines, or inks may not be completely removable because they contain permanent color. Occasionally, the stain is removable, but so is the dye used in the threads of the garment that the stain covers and the two can not be separated. The good news is the chance of removing a stain increases with your help. The sooner you get the stain to the cleaners and the more information we have, the better our chances of removing the stain. Interestingly, pre-spotting, on your part, does not help and can often hinder or even prevent the removal of a stain.

4. Clothing manufactures are required to test and guarantee you a satisfactory cleaning method and provide care labels to advise you on servicing of your garment. - False

In a perfect world, the federal government fines those manufacturers that fail to provide a basis for care of your garment and strictly adheres to the care label laws that are in place. "Tommy H" was fined a few hundred thousand dollars several years ago because his blue stripes and his red stripes kept running together. Those "non-colorfast" garments were removed from retail stores. Remember, the care instruction tags on your garment could be based on general knowledge and even assumptions made by the manufacturer as to what will happen to your garment. The manufacturer is not required to verify what is printed on a label, or validate that the tag contains only accurate information. So we, the consumer and service provider of this garment, have to wait for the garment to be ruined and a pattern of damage to be determined, before the Federal Trade Commission will respond. Often, the care instructions are works of pure fiction, e.g., "Dry clean only, exclusive of trim," "Do not wash, do not dry clean, spot clean only," "Do not wash or clean by fabric methods and use special precautions and care to beading." The professional staff at LIONHEART CLEANERS are constantly TRAINED on how to treat problems, along with ways to service your garments.

5. Shirts don't shrink in the laundry. - False

ALL fabric is woven under tension. If the threads are not preshrunk before the shirt is constructed, laundry agitation and heat can cause the shirt to shrink. Shrinkage is so common, in fact, that almost all fabrics, as determined by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), have an amount of acceptable shrinkage. Two percent to three percent is considered acceptable in the garment industry. If this not an acceptable change for you, plan for it and buy bigger collars and longer sleeve lengths on your shirts. When fabric is improperly stabilized by the manufacturer, shrinkage can occur all at once or little by little. This creeping is not the fault of the laundry, and we'll do all we can to help you.

6. A good leather professional can clean suede or leather coats and make it look like new. - False

Cleaning technology for leather and suede has come a long way and is constantly improving. However, some change in appearance will always result from the cleaning process. Be prepared for color loss - skins from various parts of the animal/or different animals may have different colorfastness. Some leather dyes used are soluble in cleaning fluid, but are not labeled as such. There is always a certain amount of loss of oil, and some of the suppleness of the garment is lost and the item may feel different. Scar tissue and vein marks are masked by the tanners, but cleaning may remove some of the fillers used and cause the defect to reappear. Skins taken from certain parts of an animal are naturally wrinkled, then stretched by the manufacturer to achieve a smooth skin for garment making. The agitation of cleaning can relax leather and return the wrinkles. Some skins are extremely thin since manufacturers use as many as four or even five hide splits to make a garment. Extremely thin items can rip or wrinkle through no fault of yours, as you wear the garment and of no fault of the cleaner, when they clean it. Very often, leather buttons, piping, and different colors of leather panels inserted into the garment will bleed onto each other; if this problem occurs, the item should be returned to the retailer.