National Clothesline

It is (already) time once again for my annual Holiday Wish List.

Unlike the Sears Wish Book that, as a child, I used to read late at night and dog-ear pages of as a not-entirely-subtle way of indicating to those that were curious enough just what it is that I wished for, these are products that are not yet available.

All year long, I try to think of things that I believe would help a drycleaner doing shirts. Something that would help profitability, improve quality, enhance service or alleviate headaches.

Everybody that I have met who does hand-finished shirts preserves the finished product with certain types of packaging products that are supposed to protect the superior press job, distinguish the hand-finished shirt from the run-of-the-mill product and speak volumes about attention to detail.

The best of these packaging enhancements do all three. I remember seeing a product years ago that was more fluff than function.

I guess that the idea was to brand the shirt in a manner of speaking, but if I recall correctly, each of the packaging products were not the best in their field.

For instance, instead of using plastic cuff clips to hold the cuffs together, it was a sticky piece of heavyweight foil-printed paper.

The paper was printed with the product name; perhaps it was something like “Blue Ribbon” Shirt; but the product was a poor trade-off: better branding in lieu of a product that does the job far better.

So the first thing on my list this year is a group of products to enhance the appearance for that hand-finished shirt. I am not suggesting a matched set of low-end, second rate products with dubious value, but rather a few well thought out things that protect the shirt and ooze professionalism.

Some launderers make a softball-size ball of three of four sheets of tissue paper and stuff it into the neck of the shirt.

Some people are better at this than others and the ball doesn’t look like it bounced off the rim of the trash can and ricocheted its way to the inspection department and into the shirt in nothing-but-net fashion.

Others aren’t so lucky. The ball o’ tissue does a very good job of protecting the collar and clearly showing the customer that you are proud of your product. But because I like this so much, I think that there should be a product that is just for this purpose instead of a makeshift ball o ’ tissue.

Maybe this thing is inflated. A softball-size plastic bag of air, perhaps with a marketing message on it. This pouch would make it impossible for shirts to get crushed, be a breeze to attach and really set those $10 hand-finished shirts apart from the routine.

We need a button-placement template for button-down collar shirts.

Sooner or later, you will replace a missing collar button on a shirt and there will be no clear evidence as to where the missing button was before.

When you attach the new one, you run a serious risk of putting the button at the wrong place. It doesn ’t have to miss the correct position by much to alter the look of the shirt.

When the customer buttons that button, the shirt collar will not sit right on the shirt. The appearance of the shirt will be ruined. Everything that you did right on this shirt, including remembering to replace that missing button, is all for naught.

There really must be a way to be assured that the button is at precisely the correct place. Maybe it ’s a plastic template that slips under the collar and has a pin that you temporarily press into the button hole. Then there is some sort of indicator telling you where to sew the button.

Voila! You are assured that the button is exactly where it goes. Maybe it’s an attachment to your button sewing machine. I will leave the design and the R&D to Santa’s elves (or Cleaner’s Supply) on this one. They can figure it out.

There needs to be some sort of monitoring system that measures the wash water and would alert you of problems before — or at least while — they are happening, instead of you learning the hard way.

An example: You press a bunch of shirts that turn yellow due to high alkaline. A monitoring system would have tested the pH before the shirts are removed from the machine, before you sent the shirts to the press.

The monitoring system could have a myriad of functions: pH, shirt brightness, surfactant, starch level in ppm, or something like that.

If you have enzymes, perhaps the system would tell you that the water is too hot or too cold, rendering your detergent ineffective.

When you think about it, we leave quite a bit to chance when we shut the door of the washer and start it.

We expect that the water is the right temperature, the shirts will come out clean, the detergent pumps are working or our wash person has put in the right portions of powders.

We expect that he didn’t forget to put soap in the machine. We expect that we will get sour and certainly the correct amount.

Shirt washing machines have certainly advanced over the years. The ones that you program using a software package on your laptop computer are especially cool, but they aren ’t a feature that you use every day. In fact, you may only use that feature a handful of times.

But a wash quality monitor would work for you full time. When your chemical rep programs your machine, the monitor would understand what level of surfactant, bleach, alkali, pH and starch they are looking for and signal you when it ’s not happening. If your chemicals require, say, 130°F to be effective, the monitor would let you know if it’s right or if you need some remedial action.

To any manufacturer who wants to pursue this: Don’t make it something that would shut the machine down when things aren’t right. We hate those things.

If the water isn’t hot enough, just let me know. Don’t put me out of business. If the pH is too high and my shirts will yellow when I press them, just clue me in sooner rather than later.

As it is now, I won’t have any idea that there is still some residual alkali in the shirts until they hit the press head. That ’s my idea of “later.”

If your system tells me that there is a problem when the wash cycle is finished, I have the opportunity to rerun the sour cycle, or rinse the shirts or whatever I would have to do if I found out when the shirts hit the press.

If the chemicals that I pay so dearly for aren’t cleaning my shirts, this monitor will tell me if the chemicals aren’t good enough or that my washman is a bonehead. I’d rather know that than change chemical companies for no good reason.

Well, Santa, my list is long and complicated and my chimney is small and cramped, but too bad. I have thousands of friends and clients in the business that will benefit from these goodies. ’Fess up, will ya?

Happy New Year, everyone!

“If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you always got.”