Q: While pressing a dress I noticed staining around the buttons. What caused this?

A: The dyes in the buttons are usually colorfast to drycleaning solvent, but may bleed upon contact with m...

Sometimes milky or chalky areas appear on silk after spotting and cleaning, even after the dyes were tested for acceptable colorfastness. What happened?

The answer is the prespotted areas h...

if you received a white wool jacket with a whole cup of coffee spilled down the front, what would you do? The care label reads “Professionally Dryclean Only.” How can you remove such a large stain?...

DLI’s Analysis Department has seen men’s colored dress shirts with local or blotchy discolorations. Testing shows the dyes on these shirts are acid sensitive and will change to pink or orange.

Grass contains both chlorophyll (a green coloring matter found in plants) and tannin (a yellow-to-tan colored substance found in plants).

Chlorophyll is removed with amyl acetate; tannin is...