Dear Jeeves Clients,
Happy September. Hong Kong is still warm and humid, with the usual late-summer storms, and I hope you are staying comfortable.
Thank you, as always, for trusting Jeeves with your treasured garments.
This month a question arrived twice at our concierge. One was from a regular client who had seen an influencer talking about dry cleaning. The other was from someone new to us. Both asked what solvents we use, and whether they are harmful to our health.
The short answer, for the person wearing the clothes, is no.
Dry cleaning is not dry. It is cleaning with a liquid solvent instead of water, which is often kinder to fine and structured pieces than a wash. At Jeeves we use more than one professional system, including hydrocarbon and other traditional solvents, chosen for the fabric and the soiling. Hydrocarbon is the gentler bath we use for a great many of the garments you send us.
Is it harmful after you wear the garment?
This is the real question: will I absorb something from my jacket?
On a garment that has been properly cleaned and fully dried in a modern closed-loop machine, no. The solvent does its work inside the machine, then evaporates and is recovered. What you take home should be clean cloth, not a wet chemical. That is the point of the drying cycle, and it is why a properly finished piece has no solvent smell.
The older stories people see online are mostly about working around the chemical in a poorly controlled shop decades ago, not about wearing a finished coat today. That reputation belonged to an earlier way of working. It is not a description of your wardrobe.
What we actually do here
I can only speak for Jeeves. We use modern closed-loop machines, hydrocarbon and other professional solvents matched to the garment, and a proper maintenance, filtration and drying programme so pieces leave clean, fresh and dry. Where water is the better route, we use it.
Other leading houses in Hong Kong work this way too. A short video can make the whole industry sound unsafe. A lot of that material is simply out of date, or it talks about the chemical rather than the process that sits between the chemical and you.
If you have a question about a particular fabric or about how we clean, write to me. I would love to chat. You can email us at jeeves@jeeves.com.hk
Warm regards,
Ryan Merszei
Owner and Director
Jeeves of Belgravia Hong Kong