You spilt white wine on your dryclean only garment. You can't see it so it doesn't matter. Out of sight out of mind - right? You wear it a few times on nights out, and it's starting to give off sweat smells - particularly in the underarms of shirts and blouses. 

You refuse to dry clean it and instead opt to spray perfume and deodorant in those areas to cover up the smell and "freshen it up". Eventually, because you've grown to love this garment so much, you decide to take it into the dry cleaners. By this point, you've worn it at least 5 times over the last 3 months; and it's never been cleaned.

Expecting the dry cleaner to be a miracle worker, the garment comes back with many stains and has yellow marks all over, even in the armpit area. You're absolutely furious and immediately blame the dry cleaner for ruining your garment, threatening to take legal action. Of course you would, you love this baby and now it's ruined!

These stains that have appeared after cleaning are called “invisible stains”.

Invisible stains are stains that are not seen with the naked eye, and will only present itself after laundry or dry cleaning.

The problem with invisible stains is just that - they’re invisible! You won’t be able to see them until after they’ve been cleaned. This is because when exposed to heat, or left for a period of time, the stain oxidises and becomes visible after the wash cycle.

Simply put, the process is the same as it would be if you leave a peeled apple in open air – it’ll turn brown.

The good news is, you can treat these stains, but they’re time sensitive. Oxidisation is never a good thing - and if these stains are left to oxidise without cleaning they can actually set into the fibres of the clothing, making it virtually impossible to remove, and resulting in ugly brown marks as mentioned in our story above.

Invisible stains are tricky to remove, and the success of this is time dependant. Don't avoid us; we're here to help you!