Wash with Wally: Cleaning Cuffs and Collars

By Wally Makowsky | Jun 29, 2009

I recently landed a commercial account with a company that is contemplating buying polo shirts and khaki pants for its drivers. However, due to budget constraints, the company doesn’t want to embroider the shirts with drivers’ names. How best can they identify the clothes before assigning them to the driver – or to us for wash-dry-fold? This is going to be my first commercial account so any help will be appreciated.

There are a couple of ways they can do it. Perhaps the cheapest and most effective way to identify the item, outside of embroidery, is to use iron-on patches. You can write the drivers’ names or identification numbers in the patches with marker. Most iron-on patches can withstand washing and dry-cleaning, and they last a fairly long time.

I want to offer a laundry pickup service for restaurant towels, bar mops, aprons and chefs’ coats. I have checked with my local supplier for detergent, and I use the Dissolve All degreaser.

I’m hesitant to offer these services until I am absolutely certain I am able to adequately clean the items. Can you advise me on tried-and-true products and procedures for laundering these items so that I can move forward with confidence?

Laundering bar mops, aprons and chefs’ coats requires not only the use of the proper products, but also proper wash procedures and proper water temperature. Generally speaking, your water temperature should be at least 140 to 145 degrees.

The product Dissolve All is a metasilicate and it’s designed to handle oils and greases, but it doesn’t do much to remove other food stains, or what I call “carbon stains.”

Therefore, you also require something called a “built detergent.” This is a detergent that includes silicates but also features a high level of surfactant to remove the other types of stains you’ll no doubt encounter.

In addition, be mindful of your water temperature and wash time. The proper wash cycle would be a three-minute pre-wash using a small amount of a built detergent, followed by a nine- to 12-minute wash cycle; use hot water and include either oxygen bleach or chlorine bleach. Then, follow up with three rinses, and that last rinse should feature a sour, as that will neutralize the alkalinity and bring the body back to the fabric.

I’ve been having problems removing blood stains from white bed linen. I wash the linen in cold water like I thought I was supposed to, using a good laundry detergent and chlorine bleach. However, the stains won’t come out. In fact, it seems like they are more “set in” than ever. What am I doing wrong?

You should never use chlorine bleach when trying to remove blood stains. You can use oxygen bleach or no bleach at all. Often, a good laundry detergent and cold water is all that is required.

As you’ve discovered, chlorine actually sets some of the properties in blood, such as iron, into the fiber, making the stain more difficult to remove.

Now that you’ve gotten yourself into that situation, you need to use either an enzyme-based detergent to remove the remaining portion of the stain or a protein remover – and you might have to spot the stain and re-wash.

I have been very successful in the drop-off segment of my laundry business. Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of men’s shirts, and I’m having trouble cleaning the cuffs and the collars. What should I do?

First of all, your problem is not unique. Most shirt laundries experience trouble in removing soils from collars and cuffs. But there are two ways of eliminating the problem.

One way is to use a quality product designed for that specific job. One such product is called Citrizyne; of course, there are other similar products available. Simply ask your local distributor for a product designed to eliminate the stains on the cuffs and collars when used in a standard washing procedure.

Another method is to use a cuff and collar spotter with a spotting brush – scrub the cuffs and collars before you wash the shirts. If you cannot buy a spotter in your area, try using Wisk, which works very well.