I get so mad at my boyfriend because he takes cotton sweaters to the dry cleaners. :p Anyway, you can safely hand wash almost any apparel made of things like angora, cashmere, acrylic (and other synthetic fibers), or wool. Use cold water and Woolite, and lay the articles flat to dry...DO NOT put in the dryer. About velvet...no no no, don't try to wash it. The pile will lie flat and look shiny and cheap; it's best to take that to the cleaners. Ditto on anything made of chiffon, satin, etc.

I'm convinced that manufacturers put "Dry Clean Only" in clothes to make them seem nicer than they really are. I have a few skirts that are mostly cotton, and maybe 2% spandex that I've put in the washer and let air dry and they look fine.

For those of us gals that get the Casual Corner Collectables Jackets: They say dry clean only, but you can wash em.

I did both my black and tan jacket (seperate loads of course) and let them air dry. They were perfectly fine. The lady at the store said it had something to do with the lining, but my jackets are still looking great...and I saved $14 on dry cleaning!

Ok this is kind of unrelated but to all of you people who "send your clothes out" to be washed how do you do that?! I have never heard of such a thing. Maybe it's b/c I live in a small college town and even if they did offer it anywhere, I prob. wouldn't use it b/c I love to do laundry, but I digress. Anyway, can someone explain this to me? Thanks. :D

that happened to one of my roommates a few times during the year I spent at Stockton! Seriously now, I know it's kind of in the middle of nowhere, but there are better things to be doing...
/hijack

I don't dry clean anything except gowns and one suit jacket. Everything else goes straight in the washing machine, and I haven't had a problem with anything yet.

I live in a small college town and one of the local dry cleaner's also does laundry (they are located across the highway from our campus farm). I'd start with checking those out. I do it a lot when I am busy or if I haven't gone to visit relatives (I always do free laundry there). They also have a punch card for drycleaning and I use coupons since none of my friends dryclean, I get theirs.

I drop off my clothes, they ask me about stains (I usually mark the stains with a safety pin or tie some string around the area), they weigh it, I pay, and it is done in a day or two. Everything is always folded nicely, I never lose any socks, and it is much easier to put away. They also put some items on hangers but since I just throw out the metal ones I started to bring my own.

My undergrad had an independent laundry service...it was about $300/semester. You got a bag with your name on it, and when your bag was full (it was pretty big), you'd take it to the drop-off center...they picked up on Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays, and you could retrieve your stuff the next pick-up date.

Now I just go to the cleaners w/ directions. :) Much easier!

I do wash my intimate apparel...I just can't imagine some random person handling my undies! :eek:

but what of the dryer dry cleaning? does it work for you?

Dryel works great for me if it's just a simple cleaning/freshening with no big stains. I had a stain I didn't catch before using Dryel recently and hopefully the dry cleaner will be able to save it after the fact.

I'll use Dryel if I don't have time to brings things to the dry cleaners. Dryel works best when it's used with real dry cleaning. It's pretty much a freshner. I'll probably use Dryel on my clothes once or twice and then send it off to the dry cleaner on the third time.

There was this freak who lived in my dorm freshman year that we just KNEW stole panties. The year before I lived there, we think he even went in one girl's room and stole her panties while she was in the bathroom. Other than that, panties would always go missing from the laundry room, and it would always just so happen that he'd be around at the time, just walking around acting creepy. THEN they installed a security camera in the laundry room and we caught him red-handed! Such a freak...