With two people working outside of the home during the week, by the weekend we have a pile of dress clothes that need cleaned and laundered. We could run the pile to the dry cleaners, but the amount of time to get everything back in our hands may keep our favorite outfits out of our wardrobes much longer than we want to. Let’s just say, over the years I’d rather throw my clothes in the washing machine than take the trip to the dry cleaners even though it was only a few miles away.
When Dryel sent me their starter kit to test out, I was excited to give it a try. Not only did it mean saving myself a drive to the dry cleaners, but that our clothes could be done in the dryer we already have. Each load inside the Dryel dry cleaning bag can have up to five different pieces of clothing. Depending on the level of clean your clothing needs, once in the bag, your garments only need to be in the dryer for 15-30 minutes. A week’s worth of dress clothes between the two of us was only an hour in the dryer.
To use the Dryel At-Home Dry Cleaner system is actually extremely easy. Simply open the bag that you get in your starter kit and insert the special cleaning cloth that is included. The cloth has all of the cleaners you need for one load of up to five pieces of laundry and works best when you completely unfold it in the bag.
All you have to do next is add your clothing inside the bag, and toss it in the dryer. I left the dryer balls in our dryer so it has a bit more loft while they bag went through the drying cycle. If you need only a surface clean (no major dirt or stains) you just run the dryer on medium heat for 15 minutes. For a deeper clean, you can run the dryer for 30 minutes.
If, however, you are like me and get things on your dress clothes (hair dye from my last round of color, food, you name it), you can treat it with a bit of extra cleaner from the spray bottle to help release the stains. This even helped get out an older stain even on the 15 minute drying cycle!
Once your dryer is done, all you have to do is hang up your clothing while they’re just slightly damp from the cleaner and still warm. The hanging helps release any remaining wrinkles and you will notice they almost have a pressed appearance once they are on the hangers. The Dryel sheet gives all of your garments a nice fresh scent, and in under 20 minutes your clothing is done.
I was amazed at how nice all of the garments came out using the Dryel home dry cleaning system and do launder all of our work clothes from the week only took an hour total. The garment rack quickly filled up with clean and fresh clothing and we didn’t have to worry about the detergents fading colors or the agitator damaging anything. Besides having a great way to keep our work clothes fresh and clean, I can imagine using this if there is the perfect dress for a party or an event that I need to clean while I’m getting ready. The amount of time it took for each load of dress garments to get done in the Dryel home dry cleaning system was almost too quick for me to go back upstairs to work on another project. But having everything done that quickly saves me from having to leave the house and pay someone else to do our dry cleaning for us.
Find out more about Dryel and cleaning your dry clean only and special care products at home on their website.