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- [00:00]
A
You actually have a similar kind of look to Mr. Clean.
- [00:03]
B
I'm not bald.
- [00:04]
A
Yeah, I know you're not bald.
- [00:05]
B
I don't think there's a lot of masculinity in laundry, so I think that helps.
- [00:08]
A
Yes. We got to bring laundry into the manosphere. Smart Girl, dumb questions. Welcome to Smart Girl, Dumb Questions. I'm Naeem Raza, and today my dumb questions are all about, like, what happens when you go to a dry cleaning facility, and where do the clothes go after that? How do you clean something dry? My guests today are the father and son dry cleaning duo Jerry and Zach Posnack. They operate Jeeves New York, which is an a really upscale dry cleaning facility. They are kind of like scientists and artists. They help places like the Met and the Louvre restore textiles. Hi, Jerry.
- [00:41]
C
Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here.
- [00:42]
A
And thank you, Zach. Thank you for being here as well. Of course.
- [00:45]
B
Thanks for having us.
- [00:46]
A
Okay, so so many of us see dry cleaning facilities as, like, places where we drop off our clothing.
- [00:51]
C
Yeah, that's correct. But it's so much more because once it goes over the counter, that's where the magic happens.
- [00:57]
A
Yes. And I got to see some of that magic the other day because I went by the Jeeves warehouse in the Brooklyn New, and it was almost like I felt like I was in a Disney movie. Like, you know, Cinderella, where they are, like, making her dress and the birds and everything. There were literally dresses flying in the air, being air dried. There were, like, special Japanese pressing machines that were taking out the cuffs and the collars. They were just pressing those two parts of his shirt before it went on to some other machine that did the back and the front. This is wild. Is every dry cleaning facility like this?
- [01:31]
C
Not really. We have highly specialized equipment to give a product, give back our client their garment in much better condition than we get it in. We're tasked with an almost an impossible task. We're taking used clothes because everyone who's worn something, it's used, it's stained, it's dirty. And then the client's expectation is for it to come back looking as brand new as possible. And at times, that can be a really difficult thing to do.
- [01:54]
A
One of the things I really loved is that, Zach, you introduced me to the kind of inspections team of your operation. And so at the end of the line, I've always wondered, like, dry cleaning is this black box you drop off your clothes and what happens at the end of it before it comes to you. In your case, there's like, a Three person inspection process manned by a woman wearing all white Chanel.
- [02:13]
B
Yeah, yeah. She's amazing.
- [02:17]
A
Okay, so the basics of this. Can you clean clothes dry?
- [02:22]
C
It's a misnomer. I mean, it's dry because the process is waterless, but it's still being cleaned in a liquid. And that liquid is a dry cleaning solution, which is a waterless solution. And it goes through a very similar process to home laundry, but it doesn't have any water, which enables garments not to shrink and colors not to bleed
- [02:41]
A
because water is dangerous for fabrics.
- [02:44]
B
It can, it could. You know, water loves to swell up certain fibers like wool. So a tightly knit wool on a men's jacket or suit, that has to be dry cleaned only also because it has interfacing. But certain fibers do not do well with swelling. For example, wool, wool shrink and felt. So there's a lot of value in the dry cleaning process. But looking at a care label and seeing that something is dry clean only is opening up Pandora's box. Because I think a lot of the time brands are putting that on there to create this artificial value of saying this only has to be handled by a professional. But oftentimes a T shirt with a graphic on it does not need to be the dry cleaned. It may go to the dry cleaner, but we use very different processes for different textiles.
- [03:30]
A
Is there any rule, like, if it's cotton, you don't need to dry clean it ever?
- [03:33]
C
You know, it's hard to say because there's so many things in fashion. I mean, fashion's not black and white. So I can't give you a definitive of what can or can't be. It could be an embellishment, it could be a coating. There could be a coating on the T shirt to give it a little bit of texture that might be affected by water. It's hard to say. There's no way that I could tell somebody definitively. Yes, you could take care of this at home without me personally looking at it and maybe even testing it.
- [03:56]
A
And then also some of the clothes are dry cleaned and some of the clothes are wet cleaned. And you guys are doing all kinds of processes behind the scenes, right? You're.
- [04:03]
B
Yeah, sometimes both. Certain stains. Stains are really great for dry cleaning. Like makeup stains, wax stains. Certain odors come out in dry cleaning. But like bodily based stains, like body odor, because it's water based, needs a water process. One of the key tenants of dry cleaning is like removes like. So it's tricky because you may have a dry clean only piece that hates water, but it has a really bad body odor. So that's why we have to call a client and say, hey, it could shrink, we could lose some color. But I would hate to take your money. And it smells the same. Cause that's what your concern is. So what do you want to do?
- [04:40]
C
Like right now we have this beautiful Alaia wool skirt. It's a seafoam green and it looks like the poor woman spilled a whole bottle of red wine on it.
- [04:48]
A
Oh, no.
- [04:50]
C
And dry clean doesn't get out red wine. And now we're asking her for what we call as a wet clean release to let her know that we're going to have to soak this and potentially. And I don't even know if we're going to get all the red wine out. And one thing that we are incredible about is that if we feel that we can't help a client or restore the garment to what the client wants it to look like, we're going to tell them, look, invest the money that we were going to charge you for cleaning and something else.
- [05:14]
A
Yeah, because I don't want.
- [05:16]
C
I have to sleep at night. Zach and I have to sleep at night. I don't want to take people's money if I can't do a great job.
- [05:21]
A
Right. Do you worry about the chemicals?
- [05:23]
B
Dry cleaning, when done correctly, is a closed loop. So there's really. There should be no exposure to a dry cleaning process. And the dry cleaning team, the spotting team, the cleaning team, they have no interest in being exposed to it. So they're going to do everything they can to limit exposure. But dry cleaning solvents have come such a long way. The one that gets a bad rap often for a good reason. PERC is being phased out as we speak, which is great. We don't use it. There's some really cool solvents that use liquid silicone, alcohol based stuff, which provides an amazing clean and is much better for the planet us. It's just a great product.
- [06:01]
A
Can you describe the actual dry cleaning machine? We went to see it. It looks like a giant washing machine. Like you could fit 14 humans in it, which you probably shouldn't do.
- [06:08]
C
No, you shouldn't put humans in dry clean machines or anything other than clothing.
- [06:12]
A
They will shrink.
- [06:12]
C
Yeah, they will shrink and they'll complain a lot. They'll bang on the glass trying to get out. It's a dry to dry process. So the clothes go in dry. It goes through a wash cycle. There are detergents that are added. There are brighteners. There's, you know, other Agents to get the clothes looking great. It spins, it rinses, and then it dries and it comes out dry as well. It's probably an hour and a half process to have it go through the whole thing. The dry cleaning solution is reused and filtered and distilled because we don't release it to the environment. You know, it would be really bad. It's also really expensive. So it's constantly being cleaned and reused. And that's a good thing because it is, like Zach said, it's a closed loop. And it's much better process now than it was when I first started.
- [06:53]
A
We're going to talk about that in the 80s.
- [06:55]
C
Yeah.
- [06:56]
A
So in the back of the machine, there's also this, like, separator world where, like, different things get separated out. You showed me, like, lint comes out one. We all have lint removers in our homes, right?
- [07:06]
C
The lint, the lint filter and the dryer.
- [07:08]
A
Yeah, exactly. The thing that gets purple and fuzz.
- [07:11]
C
Exactly.
- [07:11]
A
That thing in the back of the dry cleaning machine, what does it separate for?
- [07:16]
C
You've got the lint filter. You've got something called a button trap. So if something comes out of a garment, a button falls off, it goes into a button trap so it doesn't get sucked into the machine. And then the dry cleaning solutions are distilled. And at the end of the day, all of these soils are removed from that. So we're always cleaning in perfectly clear solvent.
- [07:34]
A
You have a catch for all the buttons that might come off in dry cleaning, but you guys also did something wild, which is you were literally taking the patches off of some jeans and buttons off of some shirts before you put them in this machine. Not every shirt.
- [07:45]
C
Not every single shirt. No, but they're like specialty buttons. If someone's bringing in a Chanel garment and Those buttons are 25 or $30 each, if we have to find one to replace it, they're coming off for cleaning because they can't go through the tumbling cycle. And a lot of times, leather patches on jeans or garments are removed because there's a potential of those bleeding onto the garment. Also, leather in the dry cleaning process doesn't really fare well, and we don't want it to look beat up again. We want the garment to go looking as brand new as possible, and we'll do whatever we need to do to have that happen.
- [08:16]
A
I think you guys have seen some of the fanciest stuff in the world because you are not just cleaning clothes. You are also. You're really taking care of textiles. You've worked with the Met, you've worked with the Louvre, you've worked with the Lincoln Center. What are you doing with these people?
- [08:31]
C
Well, for the Met, we've done some, you know, textile cleaning. For Lincoln center, we cleaned a huge fabric mural. It was linen, felted, wool, and silk. It was 90ft wide and 30ft high. We've cleaned it twice by hand.
- [08:47]
B
Wow.
- [08:47]
C
Because it had. Unfortunately, someone had opened up a sandwich shop below it, and they weren't supposed to be using sort of panini press, and they ended up doing that. There was no ventilation, and there were huge swatches of grease all over it. But that was a project that we had to do in the overnight hours.
- [09:03]
A
There was panini press stains.
- [09:05]
C
Well, it was the oil. It was the grease from a panini press. So the grease went up, up this beautiful mural. And the artist is a wonderful woman named Claudia Youngstra. We actually got a chance to meet her.
- [09:17]
A
Oh, wow.
- [09:17]
C
But it was an incredible project where we were on cherry pickers overnight for two nights hand cleaning this mural.
- [09:23]
A
So it never even touched the textile. But the, like, just the feel, the
- [09:27]
C
grease, the grease got on the textile. So it was this huge brown or actually black mark about 3ft wide that went up the whole textile in one area.
- [09:36]
A
And you were able to get it out?
- [09:37]
C
Yeah, we were able to get it
- [09:38]
A
out by doing what?
- [09:39]
C
We were using a volatile dry cleaning solution, which broke down the oils and greases and a lot of time and a lot of, you know, white cotton towels to lift all the grease off of it.
- [09:50]
A
Wow. Okay. What is the most expensive item that you have ever cleaned?
- [09:54]
C
Chanel couture dress. That was from a socialite whose dad owned, I believe his private jet, was a 747 in Hong Kong. And it was a little cocktail dress that she got bad red wine on, but it was actually completely beaded with real pearls.
- [10:14]
B
Oh, my.
- [10:15]
A
So the wine had stained the pearls.
- [10:17]
C
Not the pearls, the backing. The white silk. It was a white silk dress that was beaded with actual pearls. Chanel Couture.
- [10:22]
B
Oh, my gosh.
- [10:23]
C
And I believe I was told after the fact that the value of the dress was half a million dollars.
- [10:28]
B
Wow.
- [10:29]
C
Yeah.
- [10:29]
A
And you rescued it.
- [10:30]
C
We were able to get the stains out. And I was also on the phone with my insurance company at the same time. Like, do we have enough insurance coverage on this piece?
- [10:38]
A
Because if it broke, we damage it.
- [10:40]
C
It's. You know, again, you know, there's a. No. As a saying, in the dry cleaning industry, if, you know, the client Owns the stain, but the dry cleaner owns the damage.
- [10:48]
A
Okay.
- [10:49]
C
Regardless of what the client does to it. And we end up pulling color or damaging the fibers. The client or it's going to say, well, you damaged my piece.
- [10:57]
A
Right. But we signed these waivers. I feel like I've been made to sign waivers before. Am I not supposed to legally sign those waivers?
- [11:03]
C
Well, you know, it's. Look, when you do work at our level, we're responsible. We do whatever we have to do to make sure that if something goes wrong, and seldom anything goes wrong, but if something goes wrong, we're going to do whatever possible to make the client whole again.
- [11:19]
A
I mean, that's the most expensive item you've had, but you've probably had, like, family heirlooms or emotionally more.
- [11:25]
C
Those are more difficult, honestly, because they're irreplaceable.
- [11:29]
A
Yeah.
- [11:29]
B
You know, childhood blanket. Never seen a meltdown like that before.
- [11:33]
A
What happened with the childhood blanket, it was our fault.
- [11:36]
B
She asked us to recreate it, and this created a new policy for us as a business. But she gave us these tatters of it, and we didn't know she wanted the tatters back. So we gave her her brand new blanket, a recreation of her childhood blanket. And she was like, well, where's my thing that I gave you originally? That was a problem. And now we. Even if we shorten someone's pants an inch, they're getting that inch back.
- [12:02]
A
Yeah, my tailor always does that. She'll, like, give me back every single. And she's an old school. Like, I think, like, worked in the days of, like, Norma Kamala. You probably know her. Just that. Do you know, Just that the name
- [12:12]
C
doesn't ring the bell?
- [12:13]
A
Like, I feel like she's been in this business tailoring for a long time, but she sends me back every scrap of stuff, and I'm like, why do you send it back to me? And I think she must have had an experience like this.
- [12:21]
C
Exactly. You know, it's just a good policy to give back the fabric. And sometimes it's even just an insurance policy saying, if you shorten pants, like, this is exactly how much we shortened it.
- [12:31]
A
Yeah.
- [12:31]
C
You know, there's no. There's no question about what we.
- [12:34]
A
You guys must deal with a lot of emotional drama. Like, I feel like people are very emotional about their clothes, especially in New York. Are men ever emotional about their clothes or is it just women?
- [12:44]
B
Yeah, I. I wouldn't say it swings either direction, but again, that's where like, our proactivity comes into play of just being very honest. Transparent and maybe painting a bleaker picture than what we kind of think in reality of. Really don't know if this is worth it. But we need to understand that these people's emotions are really important, and we need to hear them and if anything, take on that same frustration, put ourselves in their shoes, and then wade through the solution.
- [13:15]
A
Yeah, I sometimes feel like when I go to the dry cleaning, I'm like, I'm a little bit of a dry cleaner, Karen, where I'm like, oh, no, but this stain. And there's this stain. And you see them putting the stickers on, and the guy's like, I don't need to put the stickers on, because I'm going to do. I'm gonna know this afterwards, but I'm putting it on. It's like a performance for you to feel more comfortable. Is that what's happening? Kind of, yeah.
- [13:34]
C
The stickers don't really help. I mean, we don't like to use them. Cause sometimes they'll actually damage the fabric. Especially, like on a silk, because a little bit of adhesive could actually leave a mark. We've had that problem in the past on a gentleman's tie. But, I mean, you know, the more information the client gives us, the better. The worst thing is to not tell us what's on the garment, even if it's an embarrassing stain. I mean, I said, zach and I have seen everything.
- [13:55]
A
What's the most embarrassing?
- [13:56]
C
Stainless bodily fluids are embarrassing at times. But I mean, just, you know, or. Or tell us honestly, you know, or tell us honestly. Like, oh, yeah, I tried to get this out at home, and I mess with it.
- [14:07]
A
Yeah.
- [14:08]
C
You know, it's. That is. The more information, the better. Don't want to really withhold. We're kind of like doctors. Don't.
- [14:14]
A
Don't.
- [14:14]
C
Don't tell us.
- [14:15]
A
There's a lot of stuff that I don't understand when I even do laundry at my own house. Like, what is permanent press on the machine? What does that mean? Do you know?
- [14:23]
B
It's really for your synthetics. It'll also say wrinkle free.
- [14:28]
A
Yeah. Does it press the clothes like.
- [14:30]
C
No. Permanent press is a label that meant that the clothes won't. When it comes out of the washer and dryer at home, it's gonna look good. You're not gonna have to iron it.
- [14:37]
A
Okay. I also don't understand what those little labels mean inside. And Greg, my producer, has brought printouts. Okay. This one. I know this means wash it, but what temperature?
- [14:49]
C
Yeah, exactly. Don't cheat.
- [14:50]
A
Oh, there's answers in the back. So I would have said cold, but the back says hot. It's three dots. So one dot is col. Cold. Oh. Because it goes up like temperature.
- [15:00]
B
What's nice is that the dots relate to every symbol. So the drying symbol uses the same dots. The ironing symbol uses the same dots. So less dots, less temperature. More dots, higher temperature.
- [15:09]
A
Okay. Fiora dots. Good thing. Okay, this one is. This one has an iron and then it has, like an X underneath.
- [15:16]
B
That's a tricky one.
- [15:16]
A
Yeah, that is a tricky one. I thought that was the ironing stand. And it says, you know, elevate product.
- [15:22]
C
Elevate your iron.
- [15:23]
B
I could see that.
- [15:24]
A
Yeah.
- [15:24]
B
It means iron. No steam.
- [15:26]
A
Iron. No steam.
- [15:27]
C
Yeah, no steam.
- [15:28]
B
So just a hot iron. Take the water out. Yeah, that's. You'll. That is.
- [15:32]
C
That's a rare one. You should save that. That's really rare.
- [15:36]
A
Okay. Iron, no steam. In what circumstance would you iron something and not steam it?
- [15:42]
C
There may be embellishments that are harmed by steam. It might be a garment that has beads or sequins, and the steam will, because of the steaming, will cause them to melt. Cause them to deform.
- [15:53]
A
So, yeah, this one is triangle, which for me is. Means peace, equality and harmony.
- [16:00]
B
Yeah. Big three.
- [16:02]
A
Yes, that's what it is.
- [16:03]
B
Yeah. You can use any type of bleach.
- [16:05]
A
You can use any type of bleach.
- [16:07]
B
Triangle's the bleach symbol.
- [16:08]
A
Okay. And if I could only use some type of bleaches, would it be like an elf?
- [16:13]
B
I would never use chlorine bleach ever.
- [16:15]
A
Okay.
- [16:15]
C
That's our opinion.
- [16:16]
A
So this means bleach is allowed.
- [16:18]
B
Bleach is allowed. It's probably a pretty tough garment, but oxygen bleach would be great. But. Yeah. Please don't use clothing.
- [16:25]
A
Okay. And then if it couldn't use bleach, it would have an X over it.
- [16:28]
C
Yeah.
- [16:28]
A
Okay. These hieroglyphics from the dry cleaning world. Okay. Circle. I love. I mean, circle. I know. Dry clean.
- [16:34]
C
Dry clean. Yeah. And then the more. Nowadays there'll be more symbols within the dry cleaning.
- [16:39]
A
What do you see?
- [16:40]
C
Well, there's one now with a W, which means it has to be professionally wet cleaned.
- [16:44]
A
Oh, wow.
- [16:44]
B
Which is. Those are more for us.
- [16:46]
C
Yeah, for us. But that means, you know, dry clean only.
- [16:49]
A
Okay. Yeah, but sometimes they say P. That
- [16:52]
C
was the old perchlorethylene.
- [16:54]
A
Oh, right.
- [16:55]
B
It's dictating to the dry cleaner what solvent they're recommending what they recommend.
- [16:59]
A
Okay, here's a circle inside of A square, which I think means. I really don't know. This looks to me like a giant dry cleaning. Like a drying.
- [17:10]
B
It looks like the machine you're supposed to use.
- [17:12]
A
So is this what it is?
- [17:14]
B
No, it's tricky because the circle alone is for dry cleaning. With the square around, it's for tumble drying. That means tumble dry, no heat. Tumble dry, no heat is also an obscure symbol.
- [17:24]
C
Yeah.
- [17:24]
A
Okay. No heat or low heat, no heat.
- [17:27]
B
Low heat would be one dot.
- [17:28]
A
Okay. Low heat is one dot.
- [17:30]
C
Yeah.
- [17:30]
A
High heat is three dots.
- [17:31]
C
Right.
- [17:31]
A
They don't do that. They just put the square.
- [17:34]
B
Yeah. I'd rarely. You'd say maybe for sheets or denim. They'd say high heat. That's rare.
- [17:38]
A
Okay. Then there's, like, this, the minus inside of the square, which. Okay, I'm gonna try to make sense of it. So this was. This was drier. No, this was drier. No heat with the circle.
- [17:51]
B
I keep calling.
- [17:52]
A
So therefore, this is dryer. The square.
- [17:56]
B
Almost washing machine. It means dry. This is the drying symbol, but there's no circle. So it's a drying process. But what's tricky is that, like that how you're holding it would mean dry flat on a towel, like a cashmere. But if you were to rotate the page, it would mean lying dry, which would be put on a hanger.
- [18:13]
C
What?
- [18:14]
B
So it depends how the producer clipped that. Yeah, yeah.
- [18:18]
A
And so you have to compare it to all those symbols next to it.
- [18:20]
B
You gotta make sure you're on the right. Okay.
- [18:22]
A
So square with line means line dry, and square with flat means flat, dry. Okay. It's actually. Actually makes sense. I have to say, this is the one that made sense to me, but. Oh, and then this is hand wash. Obviously, the hand in the water does this. Stick your hand into the laundry machine. No, this is not what that means.
- [18:41]
C
Do it in the sink.
- [18:41]
A
Do not do that. Okay, we'll take a quick break and be right back.
- [18:46]
B
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- [19:43]
A
So this is a fourth generation family business, Not Jeeves, but dry cleaning.
- [19:48]
C
Correct.
- [19:49]
A
Right. So I guess it's your great great grandfather or your great. Your great grandfather.
- [19:55]
B
She was a tailor who started dabbling in dry cleaning.
- [19:57]
C
Right.
- [19:58]
A
When did dry cleaning become a thing?
- [20:01]
C
It started. I mean, it was vented many, many years ago. There's a patent for it in the late 1800s, actually. It was called, I believe, the dry scouring process. And it had to do with actually one. The theory was that there were oily rags that were dropped in turpentine in France, and someone realized that all the oils and greases came off and they sort of developed solvents from that, you know, to wash in a waterless solution. But it really became prevalent in the United states in the 50s and 60s, and that was really like the heyday of dry cleaning when they were every. When the solvent that's no longer used, which is called perchloroethylene, became available. The prior solvent was flammable, so it was only done in industrial. It was an explosion hazard.
- [20:40]
A
So you did dry scouring with a flammable solvent.
- [20:43]
C
Exactly.
- [20:44]
A
It sounds terrible.
- [20:45]
C
It is. It was terrible. But perchlorethylene changed all that because it wasn't flammable. And then there was the heyday of dry cleaning, where literally, and like I said earlier, in every apartment building, there was a dry cleaner that did work on premise.
- [20:58]
A
Wow. When did those dry cleaners go away?
- [21:00]
C
When PERC started being phased out because it was labeled from the EPA first as a potential carcinogen to a probable to a known carcinogen. And that's when the exposures change for both the operators of dry cleaning and people living above it. There's a whole thing back in the 90s of people with dry cleaners below their apartment buildings thinking that they were going to get sick and stuff like that.
- [21:21]
A
Oh, wow. Okay. And Zach, you told me something interesting when we were at the workshop, which is that your father did not want you to go into the family business.
- [21:30]
B
Yeah, it was definitely not the plan. So both his parents worked in dry cleaning. And I think there's a very different relationship there. And it may have not been the most favorable one.
- [21:41]
C
No, it definitely wasn't.
- [21:42]
B
I went to school for Mechanical engineering, worked in construction consulting for a while and kind of came up naturally. And it was something more that I brought to him, which I think was the only way that would have worked out. But it did take a year of conversation. You know, I think I've really good relationship with my dad and family owned businesses. It has a negative connotation right off the bat. You know, I think it's the first thing people say like, oh, like you two must get along really well or that must be difficult. But I think our strengths and weaknesses are really well balanced and we work really well off of each other.
- [22:12]
C
Okay, exactly. I mean, that's the, you know, Zach brought a whole new freshness to the business. He brought in his ideas, which again, we need to change. We need to continuously evolve to be in this business. Because the dry cleaning industry is actually retracting business. It's not prevalent. Most clothes that people wear to work don't need to be dry cleaned. But because we're in the specialty market, we're in luxury, it gives us an advantage over most other dry cleaners. But I said his ideas, like for example, for social media, are something which has brought the business even more notoriety. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for social media.
- [22:48]
A
And tell me a little bit more, if you don't mind, about why you were concerned about Zach going into the family business.
- [22:54]
C
Because I said my relationship with my dad wasn't great. Working with the in the neighborhood dry cleaners that we own, we own the mom and Pop down in Gramercy Park. And it wasn't doing well. Business wasn't great. We had a bunch of obstacles that prevented us from growing. We didn't have the opportunities that we had now at Jeeves and being in a business that isn't doing well. And I'm bringing in fresh ideas which is sort of contrary to what my father thought was the way dry cleaning should work. Created a lot of tension. You know, I embrace Zach's ideas where my dad was like, you know, why are we doing it? Why are we doing this? You know, we should be doing it the old way. My dad was an amazing dry cleaner. He was an amazing person who can get stains out of just about anything. But he wasn't, unfortunately, wasn't the best business person.
- [23:42]
A
You probably learned your craft from him too.
- [23:45]
C
I learned every aspect of the dry cleaning business through him. I mean, when I was at that company with them, I did everything, you know, I pressed, I cleaned the clothes, I ran the machines. When the boiler broke, I was in the boiler room, 115 degrees, trying to get the boiler back up and running again. There wasn't anything that I didn't do. And that's the same ethos that we have now when we hire staff. It's like you come to work for us. I'm not gonna ask you to do anything that I won't do or Zach won't do. And there's nothing that we won't do.
- [24:14]
A
I think it's beautiful, you guys relationship. And I saw when I went to the office, I saw you had all these post it notes, not just from your dad, but from everybody who works in the facility. Just like it was very sweet and we'll show an image of that. But there's a lot of love. It seems there is. In, in your business, in the pandemic, you guys lost like 85% of your business. Right. Because no one needed to dry clean. No one was going out.
- [24:37]
C
No, it was like a light switch. So everybody left Lao fled Manhattan like, you know, rats from a sinking ship.
- [24:43]
A
Especially in the luxury space.
- [24:45]
C
Exactly. And then who's going out? No one was going out. So we were like twiddling our thumbs
- [24:50]
A
and then you had this idea, Zach.
- [24:53]
B
Yeah, I really wanted to provide correct information because I was starting to see a lot of misinformation about clearing for your clothes, removing stains to kind of become the like Wikipedia of stain removal. We made very basic with my sister, how to guides. Get a tomato sauce stain out, get a blood stain out. No voiceover on YouTube. It was not received well, but luckily that's when short form vertical content was starting to take off. Specifically TikTok, which TikTok loves new creators.
- [25:20]
A
Did you set out to become a. An influencer in this world, like dry cleaning clothing? Did you know that would happen or you were just trying to create a resource?
- [25:28]
B
No, I think very low aspirations. Again, all of this was rooted back to how do we help the business get out of this? How do we naturally market ourselves to become a resource in the community, but also people's first subconscious thought of what do I do with this? Or who do I call? So my goal was to become known enough that that large editorial spaces would call upon us and then link our website for natural SEO and backlinking to really help the business.
- [25:56]
A
Thank you guys for like sharing some of the personal journey with us. Maybe it's appropriate because you see so much of the intimate lives of people we do.
- [26:04]
B
Wedding dresses are frequent and that, you know, those are things that people may want to pass on to their next generation in their family. And that day is incredibly emotional and important for so many folks. I think that's a very common and kind of basic one, but, you know, sentimental, vintage pieces of an heirloom that's been in the family for a century. It just requires a lot of patience and doing it the right way.
- [26:29]
A
Do people literally send in their, like, underwears and bra?
- [26:33]
B
Not to us, you can't.
- [26:34]
A
Right?
- [26:34]
C
No, we've gotten some. I mean, we have a. We have a piece now from agent provocateur that we are restoring beadwork on, and then we're gonna, you know, have to take care of it afterwards. Anything you could possibly think of that people wear, I've cleaned and taken care of.
- [26:49]
A
Do people dry clean socks?
- [26:50]
C
Yes. We just had a client who sent in a bag of their cashmere socks, and we have a new person who's doing some of the work for us. And she was asking about, is this correct? Yeah, it is correct.
- [27:00]
A
And do you charge per sock or pair?
- [27:02]
C
You charge by the pair.
- [27:03]
A
By the pair. How much is it to dry clean cashmere socks? How expensive?
- [27:08]
C
You know what? You're stumping me. I think believe it's $15 a pair to clean cashmere socks. But, you know, I don't push the buttons that often with pricing at this point. You know, we have six people who take care of that, who actually enter all the work into the system, because we're very detailed about what we do and how we track clothing over and above what most people do.
- [27:30]
A
So let's step back for a second, Explain what Jeeves is, because Jeeves is not just in New York. There's Jeeves New York, there's Jeeves in London.
- [27:37]
C
We're heavy in Middle east and in Southeast Asia and Asia. Zach and I are the owners of the license for New York. We don't have association with the other Jeeves brands. And it's a franchise. Very loose franchise. There aren't a lot of protocols like you would get if you owned a McDonald's franchise. We're kind of loose to do what we need to do as long as we uphold the quality standards.
- [28:01]
A
Why did you want the Jeeves brand? It's luxury conveys. Luxury.
- [28:06]
C
You know what?
- [28:06]
B
I get this.
- [28:07]
C
The story is when I was working my family business in Gramercy park, when we first started doing pickup and delivery, because we didn't do it originally. So I was the first driver because we couldn't afford a driver. So I was driving the truck. And I always knew about Jeeves and we had a client who was right across the street from the Jeeves location at that time was on 65th street between Madison and Park. And I would sit there and say, that's the brand that I want to own. They are the best. They are the number one. They are luxury. They are that. And then, you know, in the early 2000s, I was able to acquire the brand. So it was something I was aspirational for in anything that I've done. I've always wanted to be the best at it. And I'm competitive when it comes to things like that.
- [28:46]
A
And do you remember that when you're.
- [28:48]
B
I didn't know that story.
- [28:49]
A
You didn't know that story?
- [28:50]
B
I've never heard that story.
- [28:51]
A
No, I love it.
- [28:52]
C
Yeah, I used to park right in front of Jeeps. Cause that was where the legal parking was. And it was on, you know, 65th Street. And yeah, I still. We. We actually still have clients who live in that townhouse. Different people.
- [29:03]
A
Oh, wow.
- [29:03]
C
Same townhouse.
- [29:04]
A
The other day, I went to a really fancy wedding, and I was getting my dress fitted. And it was not my own wedding, sadly for my mother, but it was wedding nonetheless. And I was getting a dress fitted. And my tailor said, oh, you gotta take this to Jeeves. After, if you're gonna take it to get cleaned, it's gotta come to Jeeves. I'm gonna show it to you later. But Jeeves has a front store in Manhattan. Right?
- [29:28]
C
We're on. Yeah. 93rd in Madison.
- [29:30]
A
And then there's this massive kind of workshop and facility where all the magic happens over in Brooklyn. And it ends in the kind of roller coaster that we all see when we go in to pick up our dry cleaning. If you go in to pick up your dry cleaning. Because in New York, a lot of times just shows up in your apartment.
- [29:49]
C
It does, Yeah.
- [29:49]
A
A total black box. But there's that roller coaster that, like, has everyone's names, and that's where it ends up back in the store. So I want to spend a little bit of time of what happens in, like, the wonderland of your warehouse, but also how nothing gets lost. Like, how many items do you take in a year?
- [30:08]
B
We process about a little over 100,000 pieces a year. And I'd say 90% of our businesses pick up in delivery. So really quickly through the process, our drivers would pick up your work in our Jeeves branded bags. The inspection team is going to open that bag, make sure it belongs to you, open up your account, and then start logging all that in. So what the Piece is brown T shirt. We'll take a picture, we'll note any stains or maybe damages that need to be repaired. And then we clothes pin a nylon tag which can survive really any type of cleaning process with all that information. So the only time we would ever lose something if the tag comes off. But then we can do a very easy search with having that picture and the information of it. It goes through all of the cleaning, pressing, inspection, packaging, that tag comes off. Then we put that invoice that we're all pretty familiar with on the packaging. And then it goes on that, that you know, magic carpet dry conveyor. And then it's dispatched based on if someone wants to pick it up in our store or delivered back from one of our delivery drivers.
- [31:12]
A
All right, so how many items do you lose a year?
- [31:15]
C
Our rate of loss is minimal in the grand scheme of things. I think last year we may have misdelivered, I think two garments out of a hundred thousand. And I think of the two garments that we misdelivered, we were able to locate one of the two. So but you know, we strive for perfection. No one's perfect. And with dealing with that many garments is always going to be something that goes awry. But I think that we have so many checks and balances over and above because we do take a photo of every garment that comes in. We do use a barcode system. Our drivers also scan every order upon delivery. So we kind of geo reference where
- [31:53]
A
it's going is that barcode system. Like sometimes you get back close and they have that barcode still on it. You guys are does not.
- [32:01]
C
We take tags off. We hard barcode or heat seal very limited amount of garments for tracking. For example, men's shirts because there are so many that are very similar. So we could be at any given time being laundering 20 white Tom Ford shirts.
- [32:18]
A
Oh, wow.
- [32:18]
C
And if the tag falls off, we want to know definitively that this Tom Ford shirt is going to this gentleman and not that gentleman.
- [32:24]
A
Are the men in New York getting basic, you think? If this is a volume of Tom
- [32:28]
C
Ford shirts, I picked a brand out of. You know, we do a lot of Tom Tom Ford shirts. We do a lot of Ascot Chang shirts. I mean, clients aren't sending us, you know, the lower level brands because of our price point also.
- [32:40]
A
But you do also get some Zara and some H and M type stuff, right?
- [32:44]
B
We do. And that's where our curiosity really always needs to be perked up. That's where we have to say, you know, this is what it's going to cost. Be comfortable with that. And that's up to them. That's not for us to dictate who's using our service.
- [32:57]
A
When I send in clothes, my clothes are like intermingling with other people's clothes.
- [33:00]
C
Yeah, they are. They're not being cleaned separately.
- [33:02]
A
Yeah.
- [33:02]
C
We separate things at very similar to laundry. So lights and darks and weight of clothes and how long things will take to dry.
- [33:10]
A
Right.
- [33:10]
C
So we wouldn't be cleaning like a silk, a black silk blouse with a dark load of down, down coats. It's, you know, completely contrary.
- [33:18]
A
And the barcode system, is that like a Dewey decimal system? Like, is there some like, you know, you remember the Dewey Decimal.
- [33:24]
C
Yes.
- [33:25]
A
Is there some meaning to like the numbers in.
- [33:27]
C
No, it's just a random number that's then assigned. So once the barcode is scanned, all the information that we entered about that garment. So if we entered your beautiful blouse, we would note that it's from my
- [33:39]
A
friend's company, Florida Mall, my friend Jennifer's company. Thank you.
- [33:42]
C
We would say it's a blue cotton blouse with like, you know, black lace trim. We'd have an image of it. So, for example, if that barcoded tag had come off in cleaning that we could make sure that it goes back to you.
- [33:53]
A
Okay. And you don't. And do you worry about bedbugs? This is a. I mean, maybe not because you're dealing with rich people's clothes, but I don't know. Are there bedbugs a thing in New York? I'm very scared of bedbugs. Always.
- [34:02]
B
They're a thing in New York. But usually if a person does have a bedbug problem, they're going to be incredibly anxious about and telling us beforehand. I do appreciate how honest a lot of folks are with, hey, this is a. Not the most savory stain. Just giving you a heads up. But it's not uncomfortable for us. Everything happens and we've seen everything and that's okay.
- [34:25]
A
Sometimes people don't come in to pick up their clothes. Right. They just leave them.
- [34:29]
C
They do, yeah. From time to time. We don't have a whole lot of that in our company because of most of our business. Like Zach said, We 90% of what we do is pick up and delivery, but we do have clothes at the shop that people occasionally will not pick up.
- [34:41]
A
What is the largest volume of clothes that someone wouldn't pick up?
- [34:44]
C
We have like a $3,000 order of clothes from a client who's using us on a regular basis who Just kind of disappeared off the planet.
- [34:52]
A
You got ghosted?
- [34:53]
C
We got ghosted, yeah. Basically with a big order of clothes. And we've happened a couple of times. We've had a few orders. That one, her clothes are really good, but we'll donate them. We had some order, somebody dropped off a lot of cloth and we put it under the client's name who he'd given us, and it turned out not to be that client, but no one ever claimed them. And it was a lot of clothes. I don't know how that one ever happened. That was crazy.
- [35:15]
A
And what are the ethics, like when someone leaves behind $3,000 of clothes and. Sorry, it's not $3,000 of clothes. It's probably like tens of thousands of clothes.
- [35:23]
C
So that order was probably tens of thousand dollars worth of clothes. I mean, legally, New York state allows us to donate clothing after six months. We go over and above for that client. We emailed, we texted, we sent letters, physical letters, snail mail, and nothing.
- [35:38]
A
If you ever actually get ghosted, you should not do any of those things. They say, don't even text, don't send letters.
- [35:45]
C
I just want to make sure. I really wanted her to pick up her clothes.
- [35:48]
A
I mean, they seem like nice clothes. They were nice clothes. Do you want to donate them to a podcaster?
- [35:53]
C
Not supposed to do that.
- [35:54]
A
No, you're not supposed to donate them to.
- [35:56]
C
To a charity. So we'll probably use, you know, housing. We always donate to Housing Works.
- [36:00]
A
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- [36:28]
B
There's no one like you and there never will be.
- [36:31]
C
From the producer Bohemian Rhapsody, Many legends. But there is only One Michael Radio
- [36:41]
B
PG13 in theaters April 24th.
- [36:43]
A
So let's talk a little bit about stains because. And what stains and what doesn't? Because when we went in to see you, Zach, you showed us this thing called like you were doing these patch tested, almost like white cloth with 12 different color splotches on it. And then you have had a wall full of them and then something called a spectrometer.
- [37:05]
B
You got it.
- [37:05]
A
Spectrometer, yeah. Explain what a spectrometer is. Sounds like it's going to go like examine my mouth or something.
- [37:11]
B
Yeah, it's a little device. The one I have is on the inexpensive side, but it works really well for what I need. But there are some extremely advanced ones that the bigger labs use and it measures color and is able to turn that into data of where it actually falls in like a 3D graph, which is kind of crazy. So what I'm doing with that, that really simply is with that cotton swatch. I'm staining it with a variety of stains that people would encounter day to day life. For example, waterproof mascara, a blood stain, turmeric mixed with olive oil. So stains that are difficult to remove. Because in my testing I want stains that don't come out completely every time. Because when I'm. This is for performance testing of specifically longitudinal stain removers. Right now it has to be difficult. The test has to be hard.
- [38:00]
A
And so this was wild to me because they basically had like multiple sheets of this. And one of the things was just so no one's worried, you don't prick yourself and put blood onto a sheet to tie it. You.
- [38:11]
B
We do not. We have found pig's blood, which we use.
- [38:17]
C
Yeah. Online. I found an Asian grocery supplier had, you know, frozen pigs blood. Blood.
- [38:23]
A
Okay. And so you buy it, keep it in a freezer far away from everyone's clothes and sometimes take it out to test. Do these tests that you're doing.
- [38:30]
B
Yeah, Whenever I post a blood removal video, it's definitely the top comment is where did the blood come from?
- [38:36]
A
Which is fair.
- [38:37]
B
But yeah, I'm not pricking myself.
- [38:38]
A
And is blood really hard to get out?
- [38:40]
B
I don't think so with the right procedure. I think a lot of the stains that people get so worried about are not the ones that are difficult like red wine. I think it's one of the easiest stains to remove, really, on most things that are washable. But red wine doesn't scare me.
- [38:54]
A
Stick with blood for a minute, though. Like, I always feel like in the movies, you see people like murder somebody and then they burn their clothes or they get. You were saying they could just send it to Jeeps.
- [39:02]
C
Yeah, send it to us. We couldn't get out, you know.
- [39:04]
A
Are you inviting custom? I feel like I trapped you. I just invited you to invite custom for murderers.
- [39:09]
B
But no, no, we.
- [39:10]
C
We don't do crime scene work yet.
- [39:13]
A
No crime scene work. But you could. Like, blood actually lifts out pretty easily and red wine lifts out pretty. Really?
- [39:19]
B
Yeah, there's not a whole lot to red wine. I Think it's just so stark in color, especially when it's on a light garment. But a little bit of oxygen bleach, like hydrogen peroxide, which is also great for blood stains because red wine is really just a lot of color that we need to fix.
- [39:32]
A
But then why couldn't you get it out of the green Elias skirt?
- [39:35]
C
Because the green Elias skirt is wool. And we would need to use a water process because dry cleaning, unfortunately, is a great oil and grease remover, but it does not remove blood stains.
- [39:45]
A
Oh, so you can wet stains, food stains.
- [39:47]
C
So we need to use water.
- [39:48]
B
But it's probably going to shrink because it's.
- [39:50]
A
And it's gonna shrink.
- [39:51]
C
Exactly. So that's the oxymoron. That's the problems. Again, we are given clothes. If I got a red wine stain on my shirt, it's cotton, I could wash it easy. But if we're gonna look at something that's silk and it's black and it's white, and the black could bleed in water, then we're gonna have a whole issue of getting that kind of a stain out.
- [40:08]
A
So I guess this kind of answers that question. But if you will do. I'm sorry to use this word in front of Jerry, but Fuck Mary, kill. Okay, Sorry.
- [40:15]
C
I've heard that word like that.
- [40:17]
A
Okay, good. So a fuck Mary kill on stains. Okay. And the kill means you will never see it again. You would love to never see this soon again. Okay. Deodorant stains, blood stains, or turmeric stains.
- [40:34]
B
I think turmeric's hard, but it's a very cool process because turmeric usually turns this bright red when you expose it to what needs to be removed. It's a very interesting reaction. So I probably fuck turmeric. I didn't think I would say that in my life. Mary. Bloodstain, it's always great content. And then deodorant is such a wide range of product that sometimes I think deodorant actually physically discolors underarm stains. It literally bleaches it with. When it interacts with your sweat. So sometimes it's just not fixable, which is very difficult.
- [41:09]
A
Okay, so you're gonna kill deodorant.
- [41:11]
B
Deodorant.
- [41:12]
A
And you're gonna fuck with turmeric, and you're gonna marry blood. Oh, wow. Okay. Do you have that same assessment?
- [41:20]
C
I would. For me, the one that I want to kill is ink.
- [41:24]
B
Ink.
- [41:24]
C
Ink, yeah. Ink, to me, is the hardest thing for us to get out because there's so many varieties of ink and ink. Is just, you know, crazy. We got an ink stain from a client, actually a television personality who will remain nameless, who had a seersucker suit that he got ink on and he tried to get it out at home.
- [41:42]
A
Tucker. Tucker Carlson. What are you doing? I'm teasing. I don't want my plastic across.
- [41:49]
C
And I wish he wouldn't have touched it. And he actually, we sent it back and it took us like three weeks. And it looked good, but it didn't look great. And I was really annoyed because I wanted to really completely restore this jacket. It was his jacket and his pants, and if he didn't mess with it, we would have been. Probably would have gotten it out. But there's so many ranges of ink.
- [42:06]
A
Right. So when you stain something, like, I, for example, just got a blue ink stain on a white leather jacket. Oh, gosh. Jerry's so disappointed at me. The pressure must be high, Zach. So. Okay, I'm gonna tell you what I did. Now I'm gonna get in trouble.
- [42:23]
C
No, you're not.
- [42:24]
A
Zach's like doing some Zen prayer.
- [42:26]
B
You didn't quote anything. So.
- [42:27]
A
Yeah, I put water on it.
- [42:30]
C
Okay.
- [42:31]
A
And a little bit of Aesop hand soap.
- [42:34]
C
Okay. And what happened?
- [42:35]
A
Because that was there. Nothing happened.
- [42:37]
C
Nothing's gonna happen.
- [42:38]
A
Just made it. It a little like the blue kind of smudged a little bit and then the area around it got a different color to the white.
- [42:45]
C
Trying to do anything. Cleaning leather at home is. Is fraught with. With difficulty. It's just not something you can put water on usually.
- [42:52]
A
So when we stain something, what we should. What should we do? I guess we should go to your TikTok channel.
- [42:56]
B
You should not buy white leather ever again.
- [43:00]
A
Because it's not stylish or because.
- [43:02]
C
No, of course it's stylish.
- [43:03]
B
Because anything's going to make it look terrible. If you're gonna buy leather, I would buy dark colored leather.
- [43:09]
A
I bought it at the, you know, like they have that big vintage sale that comes out to New York and I got it from, like, I think it was from Decades or one of the LA stores.
- [43:16]
B
Yeah. But all leather's different. Depends how it's sealed. If it's aniline, non aniline. But I would bring it to a leather specialist. I think specifically with a light colored leather, it's really difficult to do at home.
- [43:27]
A
I feel like such a disappointment. This is very sad.
- [43:30]
C
No one knows how to get stains out. It's, it's. You know, we've seen so many issues with clients who try to do Home stain removal and they damage. Good. But the best thing to do is to do nothing is to blot it out. If you got like a wine stain, blot it out. Leave it alone.
- [43:43]
A
What does blotting mean? You take like a little water and you want to.
- [43:45]
C
No, you just take a, you know, a clean white terry cloth towel and just splot whatever's on the spot.
- [43:52]
B
Up and down, up and down. We don't want to spread it around.
- [43:54]
C
No. Up and down, up and down. No rubbing because you'll damage. I've seen so many silk ties, gentlemen, silk ties and ladies silk blouses. Damaged, because they'll rub on. On it.
- [44:05]
A
Okay.
- [44:05]
C
And then they'll chafe the silk, and then it kind of removes a little bit of the top dye, and then it creates, like a white area.
- [44:11]
A
This is like the same thing we struggle with. Like, if you have a zit, like, do not touch the zit.
- [44:15]
B
Yeah.
- [44:16]
A
It's the same theory.
- [44:17]
B
It's going to be less satisfying in the moment, but, yeah, long term. It's going to be very long term.
- [44:22]
A
It's going to work out for you. It's kind of a dumb question, but what makes a product stain or not stain? Like, is there something about, like, the viscosity of something or the color of something or. Or the chemicals of something that.
- [44:36]
C
It's generally, the color is what you see when it's left. I mean, for ink, it's. You know, ink is multi layers. There's a carrier that's using oil or wax. And the problem with ink, like we were talking before, why it's so problematic is. Cause once you remove the carrier, the dye spreads. So when you're left with, like a tomato stain, it's really. What's left is the color of the tomato or the ketchup or the mustard. With mustard, what's left is the color with turmeric. Cause that's what gives mustard its color.
- [45:01]
A
Oh, it's turmeric and mustard.
- [45:03]
C
Yeah.
- [45:04]
A
Oh, I did not know that.
- [45:06]
C
Yeah. So that's what gives it that bright yellow. When you get that really intense yellow mustard, it has tumeric in it as well.
- [45:12]
A
I assumed it was like a food dye, and RFK was worried about it.
- [45:15]
C
Hopefully it's not a food dye.
- [45:16]
A
Yeah, right.
- [45:17]
B
Which is yellow 65 or something.
- [45:19]
A
Yeah.
- [45:20]
C
Which should be banned soon.
- [45:22]
A
Oh, maybe. I don't know. I recently learned that if you ban all the food dyes, then food is gonna be a beige color. Like all food, most food will be like, beige.
- [45:30]
C
Be like gray beige, you know?
- [45:31]
A
Yeah. Exactly. It'd be like Millennial beige. Very, you know, which is kind of. I'm kind of very sick of seeing that. So.
- [45:37]
C
All right, yeah, you know, enough basic stuff.
- [45:39]
A
Is there like one magic product that cleans 90% of stuff?
- [45:43]
B
I would say liquid laundry detergent is so incredible at stain removal. It's got just about everything that all those all purpose stain removers like the Shout or the Shout or Oxiclean, Max force or all that stuff. Just, just be gentle with it. Use maybe a couple drops. Just. It's got enzymes to break down these really big food molecules, which is amazing. It's got surfactants to capture surround oil stains. So just a little bit of that's going to go such a long way.
- [46:13]
A
So instead of buying like an extra spritzer, I don't want to screw up any brand deals you might have. But instead of buying like a shout spritzer that you spray onto stains, you're saying just use a little bit of.
- [46:24]
B
I still use those sprays because they're just so convenient and maybe a bit more. Maybe their levels of enzymes are a bit higher and concentrated because their functions are different.
- [46:33]
A
It says 3x or 5x, but if
- [46:35]
B
you're very large letters. Yeah, exactly. But if you're at the laundromat and you didn't pre treat a stain, you're like, okay, I have this red wine stain, I need to wash it now. I can't go home. I need to wear this blouse tomorrow. I would work in a little bit of that liquid detergent and powder too. You could just mix a little bit with water. Same thing. And that's one of the big disadvantages with pods is you can't pre treat stains.
- [46:56]
A
If I could only have three garment cleaning products in my world. So you said liquid laundry detergent. What else would I have at home?
- [47:03]
B
A powdered oxygen bleach.
- [47:05]
A
Which is like Oxiclean, correct?
- [47:06]
C
Yeah, Oxiclean is great. And what would you say, the third one? I would say, well, I would like a spray bottle of hydrogen peroxide. Yeah, yeah, I love hydrogen peroxide. I mean it's, to me it's one of the best things you can have at home.
- [47:19]
A
What is the spray bottle of hydrogen peroxide?
- [47:21]
C
Just pick up hydrogen peroxide. It's usually in the, if you go to a drugstore, it's going to be in the, you know, the first aid section.
- [47:28]
A
And what do I put it on? My blood stains.
- [47:31]
C
Blood stains. It's a great, it's basically a liquid version of Oxiclean.
- [47:36]
A
Oh, Interesting. Okay.
- [47:37]
C
But you could spray it on, like, yellow underarms and let it sit. The thing that needs time. Oxygen bleaches need time. So that's one reason why we don't advocate using chlorine bleach. Chlorine beach is really bad for the environment. It's also bad for us as people. People. It's also bad for fibers. It breaks them down. Oxygen bleaches are great, but they're very slow acting. So you could take hydrogen peroxide, spray it on a stain, but you gotta let it sit.
- [48:00]
A
Do you have a thought on how much a garment should cost to justify dry cleaning it?
- [48:07]
B
Yeah. I mean, you say your say. You're saying you wouldn't bring your Ferrari to a Ford dealership.
- [48:12]
C
Exactly.
- [48:12]
B
If you spent $10,000 on an evening gown, I would like to think you should bring it to a place that specializes and has lots of experience cleaning similar things. So I think it's a sliding scale of what you deem worth it. If it's something that your grandmother passed down to you, and it is really fragile, but it only costs a hundred dollars, and it may cost $100 to service. Yeah, that I think would be worth it.
- [48:37]
A
Would you ever put Tide on a couture gown?
- [48:41]
C
Tide?
- [48:41]
B
No.
- [48:42]
C
No.
- [48:43]
A
Never.
- [48:43]
C
Never. No. We wouldn't know when we've done couture. We've done a lot recently is, you know, most of them are being done by hand.
- [48:51]
A
Right.
- [48:52]
C
Using, you know, cleaning products that are professional grade and with a lot of care and a lot of love and a lot of time.
- [49:00]
A
But there's never a time where, like, you. Because you were saying tide gets, like 90% of stains, but you would never use it on, like, a fancy item.
- [49:06]
C
No, we're talking when Zach was talking about using Tide as on washable garments, I mean, not something like, you know, something that came off the red carpet from the Met gala.
- [49:14]
A
Yeah. A lightning round. We'll do some very quick questions, and then we're gonna let you guys go. Okay. So what is the word? Martinizing? Martinizing.
- [49:21]
C
Martinizing was a brand of dry cleaning. It was just a brand. It was a franchise. One hour. Martinizing was really big in the 60s.
- [49:28]
A
Okay.
- [49:28]
C
It means nothing.
- [49:29]
A
Various people have told me that I have to ask you about Martinizing or Martinizing as.
- [49:33]
C
They said it was a brand.
- [49:34]
A
Okay.
- [49:35]
C
It was kind of like Q tip.
- [49:36]
A
Okay. Okay. Do you think you'll ever have your own brand?
- [49:41]
C
I don't think so.
- [49:42]
A
Pause knocking.
- [49:43]
C
No, I don't think so.
- [49:44]
A
No.
- [49:44]
B
Cheeves is a great name. It's got really good reputation around the world. It works really well for us.
- [49:49]
A
Okay, is one hour dry cleaning too fast, too slow, or just right?
- [49:54]
C
It's impossible.
- [49:56]
B
Okay, well, you can do it, but it's terrible. Yeah.
- [49:59]
A
Is it like 99 cent pizza?
- [50:01]
C
Well, I mean, it used to be able. The process was quicker in the day when you had two different machines, but really, like the cycle for dry cleaning is over an hour. So even though. Yeah, it's way too even. Same day services is too quick. Unless you're in an emergency situation.
- [50:14]
A
Fabric softener is a thing. Is fabric hardener a thing?
- [50:18]
B
Fabric hardener, like starch, starch, sizing.
- [50:21]
A
Ah, yeah.
- [50:22]
C
Yeah. You can add a little bit of body to something with a starch or sizing. I don't recommend it.
- [50:27]
A
Cheer, joy, gain, fab. Why is. Why are all these brands so happy?
- [50:32]
B
It's a great question. All of those are fabric softeners, and I think they're just trying to maybe exude this comforting. I mean, comfort's a brand too. Just this very soft and wholesome vibe. Yeah. Fabric softener's not our favorite. I would really only use it for, like, sweaters.
- [50:49]
A
Yeah. I could see by how your dad looked at you when I said fabric softener that you had a vendetta against fabric softener.
- [50:54]
C
We have issues with fabric softener. Yeah.
- [50:56]
B
Fabrics used to be much rougher, and they were much more valuable than when cotton was really uncomfortable.
- [51:02]
A
Yeah.
- [51:02]
B
So that's why our previous generations really loved fabric softener that's trickled down. But now, like a brushed cotton is so soft, you don't need to make it softer.
- [51:11]
A
What about when you have old clothes? Actually, I just bought this pair of, like vintage army gear, and it was very thick and wonderful, but it also smelled like mothballs. That is the bad thing about life in the world. So do you guys do just.
- [51:24]
C
Those are hard getting out that sort of vintage, vintage smell. I call it that vintage funk. I mean, if it's launderable, if something's washable, that'll. That'll usually do it. I mean, you know, it may take multiple washings. I mean, again, it may even been washed with detergent with fragrance, and that may be objectionable to you as well. But multiple washings should get rid of that vintage clothing and that mothball smell.
- [51:48]
A
Do you guys wash your own clothes?
- [51:50]
C
I do. I think Zach sends this to the laundromat. But I do my own laundry.
- [51:55]
B
I find a lot of value in my local wash and fold guy because my building charges 350 a load. I'd much rather give Ivan $40 a week for him to do it as opposed to Hercules $20 and waste my own time. But I do all of my nicer T shirts, bathing suits, things that I really want my personal touch on.
- [52:17]
A
What is the one thing that's impossible to clean right now that you wish you could come up with a cleaning
- [52:22]
C
solution for garments that are made of leather and suede and cotton and contrasting colors and with where luxury designers just make our life miserable. I mean if that's one thing I could for luxury brands to be honest about how things can be cleaned. But mixing like I said, we had a whole run of off white cotton hoodies with a brown leather patch and the brand will go nameless. But the brown leather patch bleeds and it's impossible to clean.
- [52:54]
A
Why do you have to take pleather into a leather place?
- [52:57]
B
I don't think you do.
- [52:58]
C
Don't really need to. Pleather can be wiped down. Most pleather if it's got a shiny finish, it can be wiped down at home with soap and water or even fantastic plastic or Windex.
- [53:07]
A
Okay, Windex.
- [53:08]
C
Or something of that nature. You don't need to really do not
- [53:10]
A
want to wear leather ever again.
- [53:11]
C
Well, pleather, we're talking pleather, not leather. Pleather is vinyl or faux leather or whatever vegan leather. Depends on the finish. But it's plastic.
- [53:20]
A
My almost last question. Why is there so much plastic? Is there any way to get rid of all the plastic that exists in the dry cleaning facility?
- [53:26]
C
I would love. That would be my. Earlier you said my goal would be to get rid of all the plastic. We would love to. A quick sidebar. We do a lot of gentlemen shirts and they like them full folded.
- [53:35]
A
Yeah.
- [53:36]
C
We wanted to get rid of the plastic. We found a translucent paper bag. We thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Our clients hated it.
- [53:43]
A
Okay.
- [53:44]
C
Old habits die hard.
- [53:45]
A
Okay. Plastic is. It's like demanded by consumers because they want to see what's inside the bag.
- [53:51]
C
Yeah. And we haven't found a better way of packaging dry cleaning. We do use some zipper garment bags for clients. But again those are also the non woven bags are made of plastic also.
- [54:00]
A
Okay, last question for you guys. What is a dumb question that you've had that you haven't been able. I've asked you all my dumb dry cleaning questions and they're not dumb. No, but things I didn't know. Like things I couldn't google. Things I just have thought in my mind but never had the Audacity to ask out loud. Do you guys have questions like that? Things that you.
- [54:17]
C
All the time. For example, I wonder about when you see construction sites and there's these women that are outside selling food out of a big thermos thing. Whatever. A big cooler. They're all over the city. I want to know where that food's coming from. Are they making it at home? Is there a central commissary? Is there a ghost kitchen somewhere? Because the product they have seem to be pretty similar.
- [54:40]
A
Yeah.
- [54:40]
C
So where. Where's this food come from? The same thing about the. The food guys on the street. The. The fresh fruit guys.
- [54:46]
A
Yeah.
- [54:46]
C
You know, they businesses or is this massive company who's supplying fruit that's on the edge?
- [54:52]
A
Yeah. Being sold on dry pruning is a black box to us. Fruits are black boxes.
- [54:57]
C
Well, I just want to know where this food's coming from. I'm really curious because they all have similar, you know, pork chops and rice and, you know, various aqua frescas.
- [55:04]
A
Would be so interesting to find out if it's like a massive. Like a massive company. Mammoth corporation.
- [55:09]
B
Yeah.
- [55:10]
C
In Long Island City with a big kitchen.
- [55:11]
A
Exactly. And you think you're just buying from this, like, mom and pop.
- [55:14]
C
Exactly.
- [55:15]
A
Okay, Zach, what about you?
- [55:17]
B
I always find, like, Goosebumps fascinating, but specifically, like, I feel like with music, it comes up a lot. When I've heard a song live and then I play it back a week later, it's just a very physical reaction. Something that's very, I think. I think emotional. I just feel like goosebumps in general maybe are very primal, but seem to be kind of infesting my mind a little bit.
- [55:40]
A
Oh, I love that. Also, has a piece of clothing or experience at Jeeves ever given you Goosebumps?
- [55:48]
B
I don't know about Goosebumps, but you were with me in our workroom when I got that suede Celine bomber back, which was. I filmed myself hand cleaning it about four or five years ago, and that was my first video on TikTok that, like, really grabbed people's attention, and to see it come back was really cool. For Full Circle moment, I think a bit of, like a. That's a snapshot in time, right. Where I was, like, really throwing everything at the wall, and it wasn't working, and things worked, and now we're here, and I think that's just really cool to kind of see that garment again.
- [56:25]
A
Yeah, I remember, like, it was the day that we came in to film some of the B roll for this, and it was a Like a. It was a cool looking jacket, but you had. You were in awe of it.
- [56:35]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's a regular client and it's just so cool to see that they again, like, were happy with our service. So they sent it back and it still looks really good, but the client's wearing this beautiful piece because, you know, I love when people are wearing really expensive garments, but truly wearing it and staining it and damaging it and making it stink, because I think that's what. I think people forget that clothes are functional. So it just makes me really happy.
- [57:01]
A
Well, thank you guys so much for spending time with me. I appreciate how much you shared and all your wisdom and demystifying the black box that is dry cleaning, but also sharing your journey. I'm so happy that you guys get to work together and that you are managing director of this, you know, brand that you saw when.
- [57:17]
C
Oh, it's great. I mean, the fact that Zach and I co own the company, it's an amazing. It's. It's been an amazing journey. I've been doing it for 40 years. You know, I never thought that I'd be working with Zach. And every day is a pleasure to get up and, you know, be able to work with my son. It's, you know, great. And also, like Zach said, it's great for me being in the business for so long. There are garments that I've seen that I've cleaned for one generation, and I'm getting to clean it for a second generation as well, which is that, to me, gives me goosebumps.
- [57:42]
A
Well, I love that you fulfilled your dream and that you didn't know that story.
- [57:45]
B
Yeah, that was really cool.
- [57:46]
A
The chief story. I love it.
- [57:48]
C
It's a good story.
- [57:49]
A
Well, are you gonna pass down all your. I mean, I don't wanna talk about death, but let's talk about death for a second. Are you gonna pass down all your clothes to Zach?
- [57:56]
C
I don't know if you want.
- [57:57]
A
You guys have very different styles.
- [57:58]
C
I don't know if he wants my wardrobe. We have a little bit different diverging taste.
- [58:02]
B
One of my most complimented sweaters is his vintage J. Crew turtleneck that I absolutely love. So, yeah, yeah, there's piece and pieces.
- [58:11]
A
I always wear a sweater. My dad passed away a few years ago and I always wear a sweater from him. So I love it. Thank you guys so much for doing this. I so appreciate this. Zach and Jerry, you can find them at Jeeves. You can find them online at Jeeves ny. You can find them uptown in New York. And you can find their book, the Laundry Book, which is the definitive guide to caring for your clothes and linens. It's fascinating, especially like the chapter on hangers and what kind of hangers to use for what kind of products and how to store your clothes. It's amazing. Like I, I, I feel like it's really high expectations. Thank you.
- [58:42]
C
It was a fun book to write.
- [58:43]
A
Thank you guys.
- [58:44]
C
It's a pleasure. We love being here.
- [58:49]
A
I love conversations with people like Jerry and Zach because they are so such experts in their field. It is a topic that so many of us take for granted. Like we go, we drop something off, we see a label, we do what we want with it. But I love the care they bring to their work, their industry and their artistry, really. And I also love their relationship and how honest they were about the fear of working as a father and son duo and the joys that have come out of it. And I love that Zach got to learn about his dad's kind of first dreams of Jeeves New York in this interview. Anyways, I hope I will be seeing them a lot more. I'm taking them this incredible vintage Carolina Herrera dress that I just wore to a wedding in France. Danced my ass off and got stuff at the bottom. I was going to put Tide on it and try to do it myself at home, but I'm not going to do that now because of all of the warnings that they gave me. I don't want their judgment. I want their love. That's it for this episode of Smart Girl Dumb Questions. I'm your host Naeem Raza. The show was produced with Greg Ott and Annalisa Cochran and Wondering Studios. You can find Smart Girl Dumb Questions wherever you get your podcasts on YouTube, Apple, Spotify. Please be sure to leave us a review. Tell us what you think and you can send me an email too. Naimaraza101gmail.com.
- [60:17]
C
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