Sheers are Timeless; Cleaning Them Shouldn’t Be
Unlined sheer fabrics effectively act like huge air filters when hanging in the window. By their nature, sheers let the air in the apartment circulate through them which then embeds soot, dust, dander and other allergens in the fabric even if the windows are rarely if ever opened. If you can imagine what your furniture would look like if you dusted every few years you can start to imagine what has collected in the weave of your sheers.
New York Drapery Care Sheers Cleaning Service
Ideally we prefer to clean our customer’s sheers in our workroom, by hand-washing them using a water based process and environmentally friendly cleaning solutions.
We use a series of very long tubs we designed specifically for this purpose. The sheers are cleaned and rinsed repeatedly to remove all the embedded soil. Once the sheers are clean they are hung to naturally dry and then steamed by hand to remove all the wrinkling.
While we wish we could use this immersion process all the time it simply is not safe to use on certain fabrics without chancing significant shrinkage. Natural fabrics including some linen weaves and wool are extremely susceptible to shrinkage. The only way to ensure that these delicate sheers will not shrink is by hand dry cleaning them and letting them slowly air dry.
While we would love if everyone cleaned their sheers and drapery every couple of years, the reality is many people who contact us wait until they’re painting, renovating, or replacing their windows and are forced to take down their window treatments.
This is often after 5, 10, 15 years or more. Sheers that have not been maintained in many years can still be cleaned, however the fabric may have become permanently discolored. When soot, moisture by the windows and the sun react with each other they will over time permanently discolor the fabric, often leaving it with a slight gray cast no matter how clean the fabric is post cleaning.
If you, or anyone else in your home suffer from dust allergies please don’t overlook this important bit of maintenance.