Dry Cleaning

April 20, 2004 - Ed is Taken to the Cleaners

For most men ironing a shirt is an activity that could take a very long time. It’s kind of like paddling up the Mississippi in a snowstorm with a broken paddle and a broken arm. Most men grew up with mamma doing the ironing for them. She was efficiency in motion. A little steam here, a little starch there, a fold, a hanger, and voila, shirt is done. But, luckily there is an alternative to ironing in the post-living-at-home days. It is called dry cleaners. You exchange your dirty shirt for a ticket and a “Wednesday, Okay?” and when you return your shirts are clean, pressed, and covered in plastic.

Yesterday, the dedicated staff of edhat aired our dirty laundry to find out how much money it takes to launder a shirt. We smiled and dialed, calling all the dry cleaners in town from Ablitt’s to Zip Kleen. It turns out that cleaning a man’s shirt costs less than a gallon of gas. And, the variation in prices among cleaners seemed less than the variation among gas stations.

But as they say in the best selling book, men’s shirts are from Mars and women’s shirts are from Venus. And, the real estate is more expensive on Venus. It seems that women’s shirts cannot be pressed in the same manner as men’s. So, instead of investing in better pressing equipment, dry cleaners opt to hand press women’s shirts and charge an appropriate surcharge. Evidently, after size 12, a woman’s blouse will fit in the press, but only one of the cleaner’s we called offered that as an option.

Below are the results of our survey. Note that some cleaners have multiple locations, but we only report them once.

Cleaner

Address

City

Men’s

Women’s

A-1 Cleaners

324 N Milpas

Santa Barbara

$1.50

$3.50

Diamond Dry Cleaners

5826 Hollister

Goleta

1.95

3.95

Regal Cleaners

2830 De La Vina

Santa Barbara

1.95

4.25

St. Paul's Cleaners

3849 State

Santa Barbara

1.95

5.50

Zip Kleen Dry

1998 Cliff

Santa Barbara

1.95

5.95

Effie The Taylor

4425 Hollister

Santa Barbara

2.00

12.95

Magnolia Too

5144 Hollister Ave

Goleta

2.00

4.50

Master Cleaners

4425 Hollister

Santa Barbara

2.00

5.95

Santa Barbara Cleaners

5801 Calle Real

Goleta

2.00

5.95

Sunny Cleaners

2014 De La Vina

Santa Barbara

2.00

3.50

Casitas Cleaners

5402 Carpinteria Ave

Carpinteria

2.10

3.50

Rockwell Cleaners

4850 Carpinteria

Carpinteria

2.10

4.50

Norvelle Bass Cleaners

1015 De La Vina

Santa Barbara

2.15

5.40

Ablitt's Fine Cleaners

14 W Gutierrez

Santa Barbara

2.23

6.05

California Cleaners

5915 Calle Real

Goleta

2.25

3.40

Justo The Taylor

2277 Las Positas

Santa Barbara

2.25

???

Pressed 4 Time

Pick up

Goleta

2.35

2.35

King's Cleaners

5741 Calle Real

Goleta

2.50

6.95

The average price cleaners charge to clean a men’s shirt is $2.07; the average price to clean a women’s shirt is $5.19.

It is obvious from our contests entries that there are people who have never walked into a dry cleaner. Imagine if it really cost $35 to launder a shirt … mamma would be back in business! And, probably doing some freelance to boot. The winner of the contest was Camster who will receive 4 tickets to the Santa Barbara Fair and Expo that runs this weekend from Wednesday to Sunday. We hope Camster doesn’t spill any Funnel Cake on his/her shirt.

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