FINDING A GOOD dry-cleaner is like finding a good hairdresser: it could involve a bit of trial and error but when you come across someone who does what you want to perfection, you're a customer for life. Hong Kong has a wealth of dry-cleaners - from high- to low-end - but how do you know whether your local laundry is any good when you don't have time to research prices and services? Here is a guide to finding the best dry-cleaner for you.
The way in which an outlet handles leather is a good dry-cleaning benchmark, and when trying somewhere new it is worth asking which method that particular company employs. The care it takes, such as hand-finishing, will be indicative of the quality of its other services.
At a high-end establishment, the process of cleaning a leather jacket is quite complex. Dirt apparently accumulates under the leather's finish so, to begin with, this finish is removed. The dirt is then removed by a lifting process quite like nail polish removes nail varnish. Then, depending on what kind of leather it is, the clothing is re-treated to return it to original state and then refinished (for example, if you turned in your napa leather purse to clean, they would have to refinish it in napa style after getting under the finish to clean the dirt out) - et voila, your jacket should look as good as new.
Most budget cleaners only rub and shine the surface of the leather (utilising the ever-so-scientific 'spit and polish' technique), which merely buffs the jacket and tricks customers into thinking all dirt has been removed. Dry-cleaning can be expensive, but you do get what you pay for. As with many services, the more manual labour involved, the more expensive it becomes, and higher prices are charged according to the amount of hand-finishing involved. The bottom-of-the-line, often family-run, dry-cleaners that dot our streets with the same regularity of 7-Eleven convenience shops offer rock-bottom prices, but almost no speciality services and are mostly a laundry rather than a dry-cleaners. Since they often over-use their cleaning equipment to keep their costs down (for example, a 20kg machine is only supposed to hold 40 items of clothing, whereas these guys probably stuff the machines with 80 to 100 items of clothing), and so are best for larger, more robust items such as curtains, daily-use tablecloths and napkins and jeans that can handle a beating.
Top-end establishments, however (such as Jeeves, and The Valet at the Furama) oversee cleaning utilising professional-standard care and make it a point to talk to their customers, particularly where delicate fabrics and tricky stains are involved.
In addition, your clothes will be returned to you sans lint in pockets and dust balls that have gathered in the upturn of your cuffed trousers.