Spring brings new energy, new opportunities and the chance to get outdoors after months of cold weather. It’s also an opportunity to bring “new life” to your wardrobe, to clean household bedding and freshen up drapes, tablecloths and other rarely cleaned items.
What Does “Spring Fresh” Mean?
At Highlander Cleaners, we help take care of your “spring cleaning”! As you’re working on planting a garden, moving around your patio furniture and preparing for the next season, it’s a good reminder to “freshen up” from the previous one…both for your physical health, but also for the cleanliness of your clothing, your bedding and your home accessories.
Our two Lancaster County dry cleaning locations in Elizabethtown and Mount Joy specialize in cleaning all different sized household items such as bedding, comforters, sleeping bags, blankets, bedspreads, quilts, afghans, decorative pillows, curtains, draperies, tablecloths, furniture coverings, small area rugs and more. As your local dry cleaner, Highlander provides gentle, convenient, timely and efficient service in handling those hard-to-clean items and you can pick them up, fresh and ready to use or put in storage for the next season.
Spring Cleaning of Bedding and Linens
Ironically, people spend about one third of their lives in bed, but don’t typically clean bed linens, comforters or sleeping bags nearly as often as clothes or other occasional use items. You may wash sheets and pillowcases regularly…but comforters, blankets and bedspreads may only get a cleaning once a year – or less.
Bedding can sometimes contain living and dead dust mites, dust mite excrement, dead skin and other bacteria. To make sure you’re keeping your family safe, you should consider visiting a dry cleaner to clean your bedding at least twice a year.
A full service dry cleaner, such as Highlander Cleaners, has special processes to clean “polyfill” and “down filled” comforters and pillows to ensure that they are not only clean, but retain their structural integrity and original loft. We have machines large enough to handle it properly and can clean it according to manufacturer’s instructions, whether laundry or dry cleaning.
For a cleaned comforter, we’ll fold it and place it in a comforter storage bag that you could use to store for a season.
Window Treatments, Draperies and Curtains
Window treatments, curtains and draperies are usually forgotten in the household. Sometimes, they stay hung for several years and have significant dust accumulation and sun damage from being in one position for so long. Also, dusty window treatments can develop permanent water marks if they are exposed to any condensation or moisture. It’s best to have these specialized fabrics cleaned by a dry cleaner once a year.
Tablecloths, Napkins and Food/Beverage Stains
Holiday and special tablecloths and napkins that are only used occasionally throughout the year, are notorious for not being cleaned after spills or stains.
Food and beverage stains can be difficult to get out, especially if they’ve been left to set in for an extended period of time. Highlander Cleaners provides expert cleaning of dining room items like tablecloths, linens and formal napkins…and have both “solvent-soluble” and “water-soluble” stain removal solutions.
It’s usually safer for a customer to not risk further damage by using an over-the-counter “all-purpose” stain removal product when you should instead rely on a dry cleaner’s expert stain removal capabilities.
For commercial work, Highlander Cleaners can specialize in regular cleaning of chef and wait staff uniforms, restaurant and banquet hall tablecloths.
Odor Removal/Smoke and Fire Damage
Highlander Cleaners also specializes in odor removal or discoloration from household cigarette smoke or removing soot and oil residue from a furnace that isn’t working properly in your home. Our customers are usually amazed at how garments, draperies and bedding will brighten and whiten up and our cleaning process takes away the yellow and gray stains that tend to sit on the surface of the fabrics.
In addition, Highlander can clean items damaged by fire as well, using specific ozone generators and processes that kill the odors and restore the items. The contact between ozone and the odors embedded in the textiles causes oxidation to reoccur, resulting in the elimination of the odors and the release of oxygen. These are safe and effective processes that are a dry cleaner’s specialty.
Wedding Gown Cleaning and Restoration
Highlander Cleaners also specializes in wedding gown restoration, so if you have a wedding dress that you’ve recently worn, but hasn’t been cleaned or restored for long-term storage, we can safely clean, preserve and package for you.
Cleaning of Pet Hair, Dander and Urine
Pets can also cause damage and stains on comforters, blankets, sofa covers, garments and more. Highlander Cleaners specializes in cleaning these items as well.
Don’t Delay Your Dry Cleaning Visit
It is extremely important to consider seasonal cleaning of garments, especially if they are stained, wet or have condensation. If the clothing item has natural fibers such as wool, linen or silk, and has any kind of stain, insects will be attracted to it.
As spots or stains adhere to the fabric or garment for longer periods of time, your success rate with cleaning drops. It’s always better to bring the item to the dry cleaner when the spot or stain is fresh. If a stain sits for 2-3 months, it tends to oxidize and bind itself to the fabric and the fibers and you have to invest more time in cleaning with less chance of success. Dealing with the stain quickly ensures an easier cleaning process that helps preserve the integrity of the fabric and minimizes any permanent discoloration from occurring.
Highlander Cleaner’s preference is to remove stains quickly and return the garment to its original brightness, with no color variations in the fabric. As we start using the processes for stains that have set for longer times, it can affect the entire garment and the time, cost and number of processes of treating the stain increases.
Also, with our full-service tailoring and alterations department, Highlander Cleaners can stitch seams, fix hems and sew buttons back on while your garments are on-site for cleaning.
Environmentally Friendly
Highlander is an environmentally friendly dry cleaner. Our dry cleaning solvents and cleaning processes are not harmful to the environment or to any individuals or pets. We use water based cleaning processes whenever possible and for items requiring a solvent cleaning, only the safest methods developed from many years of experience are used.
To learn more about Highlander Cleaners spring cleaning capabilities and our eco-friendly process, email us at info@highlandercleaners.com or call (717) 367-4665.