Give the scent you want to your laundry!

Posted on 19/10/2012 by admin

Harvey Nichols’ Knightsbridge store has been wrapped with a huge ball of wool yarn accompanied of knitting needles, to support this year’s Campaign for Wool. This innovative initiative has inspired us to look for ideas involving wool! While searching, I found a post at the household weblog “One Good Thing” by Jillee which suggests a very interesting use of wool yarns. Instead of using fabric softener, why not make wool balls and add some drops of essential oil to dry your laundry more efficiently, while giving the scent you want to your clothes.

How? It’s easy! Just wrap the wool yarn around your fingers around 20 times, remove quickly the strands off your fingers and wrap across the middle of those loops another 20 times. When it’s the size of a tennis ball, cut the yarn and tuck the end inside, making sure the ball won’t unravel! Put the ball inside a stocking, use a synthetic string to secure it and add the next balls. When ready, just wash them on high heat. Ready to give a fresh nice smell to your laundry?

LaundryRepublic, one of the winners of this year’s Smarta 100!

Posted on 11/10/2012 by admin

LaundryRepublic has been chosen as one of the Smarta 100! This is an annual prize to recognise the most resourceful, original, exciting and disruptive small businesses in the UK. We now have the chance to go one step further and grab the £10,000 first prize ‘Smarta 100, together with O2’ Business of the Year title. Voting runs until Friday 2nd of November, so help us climb into first place by voting us at: http://www.smarta.com/smarta100/2012/laundryrepublic

If you were trying to think of the most innovative sectors in the UK today, dry cleaning probably would’t come that high on your list. However, LaundryRepublic has been nominated for and won several other awards to be one of the most innovative small businesses since it started in 2008. The business won Best Business for Innovation at the South London Business Awards in 2010 and The Innovation Award at the Lambeth Business Awards in the same year. The business was also runner up in the Best Micro Business category at the Green Business Innovators Awards in 2010 and was finalist at the News On The Block Property Management Awards 2011-2012 in the category of Contractor of the Year.

Time to pull your coats and wellies out of the closet!

Posted on 05/10/2012 by admin

Summer is already behind us (but was it really summer?) and we are storing our seasonal clothes away. Here are some top tips to help you protect your garments and leave them ready for next year!

1. Think for a moment: which items do you want to keep for next summer? If you have a garment you don’t wear any more, donate it! We’ll collect your unwanted clothes for the disability charity Scope to sell in their shops – over £7,000 so far this year!

2. Dry clean or wash your clothes, to preserve them and stop any stains setting in over the winter

3. Sort and pack items by type, in separate storage containers labelled to make it easier to find them next year. Make sure they’re airtight!

4. Place cedar chips in a old sock and put it in the container to keep the bugs away. Scent savers, such as rosemary or lavender, also repel them.

5. Finally, heap the containers under the bed or the higher shelves of the closet, to keep your clothes clean and fresh, ready for the next summer season!

Chose our experience team to clean your wedding dress!

Posted on 01/10/2012 by admin

David, Co-Founder of LaundryRepublic, tied the knot last Friday at a lovely wedding in Islington. So I thought it would be good to remind you that here at LR we take special care of your wedding dress. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime treasure requiring maximum attention handling with the greatest care.

After the special day, your wedding dress can end up really soiled: wine stains, make-up… you name it. Your dress will probably be made of delicate fabrics such as silk, rayon or acetate. Our dry cleaning team has over 30 years of experience, and use the most advanced cleaning processes in the industry. They work very carefully on each stain before cleaning, and use the best solvents for degreasing. Always in a gentle and non-damaging manner, our professionals protect feature accessories, such as sequins or beads, and preserve the quality of the fabric. They ensure any repair needed is done, and then hand finish every part of the dress before hanging or boxing it ready for delivery!

Inside a dry cleaning machine

Posted on 20/09/2012 by admin

A dry cleaning machine is best described as a mixture of a large domestic washing machine and a tumble dryer. The core of the machine is a perforated drum, commonly known as the basket, which has a capacity of 20-80lb and rotates within a shell. The clothes are loaded in the basket, while the shell holds the solvent.

During the wash cycle, the chamber is filled one third with solvent whilst rotating the clothing inside. The temperature used is slightly cooler than a common washing machine and a typical cycle lasts between 8-15 minutes, depending on fabric type and level of cleaning required.

When the cycle finishes, the solvent is drained out and sent to a distillation unit to separate any water from the solvent and remove impurities that may have been transferred by the garments. The garments are then rinsed with the distilled solvent to prevent discolouration.

After the rinse cycle, the machine starts the drying cycle, where the garments are tumbled in warm air and the last traces of solvent are removed. Finally, the garments pass through a deodorising cycle which allows the circulation of cool outside air to leave them fresh and ready for pressing and finishing.

Why do women’s shirts & blouses cost more than men’s shirts?

Posted on 13/09/2012 by admin

Customers sometimes ask why women’s shirts and blouses are priced differently to men’s shirts. The simple reason is that blouses are significantly more difficult and time-consuming to press. Shirt pressing equipment has been designed to fit a standard men’s shirt – made of cotton and broadly the same shape.

However, women’s shirts are typically smaller and more fitted, designed to hang on a female body. Women’s shirts are often made using other materials, such as rayon, and feature accessories, such as sequins or lace, which mayrequire more attention. For this reason, women’s shirts have to be pressed entirely by hand, taking more time and effort and resulting in a moreexpensive process.

We would prefer to charge a standard price across both men’s and women’s shirts – it would be easier for us to administer, and easier for our customers to understand. At the moment, the machinery and processes aren’t quite there to allow us to do this, but we are working on it!

When was the last time you had your duvet cleaned?

Posted on 05/09/2012 by admin

You will spend about a third of your life sleeping, so it’s really important to sleep in a clean bed. Dust mites live in our duvets and pillows because of the warmth and moisture content. These little pest can cause allergic reactions such as skin irritations or ear problems. That’s why experts recommend you clean your pillows and duvet every six months.

LaundryRepublic wants to help you by professionally cleaning your duvet fresh for next season. We’re offering 20% off duvet cleaning until the end of September! Simply enter the code DUVET20 in the voucher code box when you place an order at LaundryRepublic.com

Decoding Laundry symbols

Posted on 29/08/2012 by admin

No one likes doing their laundry – it’s a chore, but it needs to be done (although it’s one that we can make much easier for you!). Knowing what the care symbols mean is a good start – cleaning something in the wrong way or at the wrong temperature can result in disaster.

Here’s a basic guide – we hope it’s useful!

Washing Instructions –

Bleaching Instructions –

Ironing Instructions –

Tumble Drying instructions

Dry Cleaning Instructions –

If the garment is delicate or you are not sure which procedure is best for your clothes, hand it over to our experienced cleaning team for specialist treatment. LR is always happy to help!

Source: Home Laundering Consultative Council

What customer satisfaction means to LR

Posted on 22/08/2012 by admin

Having once worked in the City and, when it came to dry cleaners, experiencing only frustration at poor customer service and restricted opening hours, the founders of LaundryRepublic decided something needed to change! They set up a dry cleaning company which operates 24/7 in your own home and is focused on providing excellent customer service.

And here we are, three years later, caring passionately about the quality of the services we offer and our customers’ satisfaction. We like keeping our customers fully informed at every stage of the process and recognise their long term value. Our customers receive a text and an email as soon as we have processed their clothes with an inventory of their order, the cost and the estimated delivery date. They receive another when their order is all clean and ready to be collected from the locker or their concierge.

Our customer satisfaction guarantee means if a customer isnt happy with the cleaning or pressing of any item, we’ll do everything we can to resolve the issue immediately. Our customers’ feedback help us to improve our service so we regularly ask them to rate their experience out of 5. We average between 4.6 and 4.8 on all measures, from hundreds of responses thats a lot of happy customers!

“I’ve found the whole service experience from placing the order to collecting my items hassle free. I was also very impressed with the level of communication throughout the cleaning process, it was very refreshing to receive updates rather than the customer having to chase up his own order (which has been known to happen before).” Stewart B, NW1

If you want to know more about what our lovely customers say, you can see more on our website (here: http://laundryrepublic.com/what-our-customers-say.html)

Working hard to be environmentally friendly!

Posted on 16/08/2012 by admin

Inevitably, dry cleaning and laundry consumes some energy and involves the use of some chemicals. However, we make every possible effort to minimise our impact on our environment. To provide an environmentally friendly dry cleaning service, LaundryRepublic has developed a environmental policy alongside the Ecovate Team at the University of Middlesex. Our key objectives are:

– Minimising waste by encouraging reuse and recycling within our business activities and amongst our suppliers and clients: we provide all customers with a re-usable laundry bag which helps us to reduce plastic packaging. We also aim to recycle all of our hangers.

– Minimising CO2 emmissions: we use dual-fuel LPG vans, reducing our carbon footprint and producing zero particulate emissions to keep Londons air clean

– Modern machinery and super-efficient filters mean we minimize the energy, water and chemicals

At LaundryRepublic we are committed to continually improving our environmental performance, periodically reviewing our environmental policy and setting targets for ongoing improvements. In the near future, we aim to be a carbon neutral dry cleaner, using an accredited program to offset the greenhouse gas emissions generated by our activities.