Eco-friendly Dry cleaning tips & myths busted by guest writer!

Hello dear readers!
One of the defining things about our UrbanMeisters community – you included – is that we are all dedicated to a more conscious lifestyle. Not an overambitious green cult. But just real people striving to make lives healthier for ourselves, our family and in doing so, for the global community. Because any conscious choice we make, whether towards conservation, pollution or even sustainable fashion, helps change the world at large – even eco-friendly dry cleaning!

Say hello to The Peahen

And which is why we love to introduce you to more everyday citizens like you and us, who through their own examples have made a choice & a change. Today we are happy to introduce you to Kasi, a.k.a The Peahen based in USA, who will tell us about eco-friendly dry cleaning. Few weeks back, we had Leotie Lovely who shared tips to green up & tox down our laundry cycle.

About The Peahen

As Kasi says, she created The Peahen to bring truth telling back to fashion. To get through all the glamour of marketing spotlights & go behind the scenes and shine her searchlight on the reality that matters. She also strives to bring ethical fashion – brands that honor sustainability, rigorous supply chain management, transparency and quality craftsmanship – to the attention of the mainstream consumer weighing in factors like human rights, animal treatment, veganism and global trade in her writing.
Just like UrbanMeisters, the Peahen is part of the Ethical Bloggers Network, a collective of writers, bloggers, and creatives who believe in sustainability, fair trade, transparency, and living an ethical lifestyle.

Interesting fact: In case you are intrigued by the blog name then here’s why she chose to name it The Peahen. Because between a Peacock & a Peahen there’s a gender role reversal. The peahen gets to set her own path. Where a Peacocks flaunts, A peahen considers. In her words – Why is this relevant? Because I see the same parallel in fashion. Where a mainstream consumer follows trends, a conscious consumer questions them.

The fashion test you must take before shopping!

Eco fashion doesn’t mean you have to hold yourself back from fashion entirely. While the entire process – designing, manufacturing, shopping, styling, dressing – should be celebrated as form of self-expression, Peahen also urges us to make meaningful ethical choices. To help guide you to make more ethical style decisions, The Peahen has worked out this fun & simple questionnaire. Save it and get thinking before shopping!

The dirty side of dry cleaning & why you need eco-friendly dry cleaning for your own health

Remember in our LONDON VS. PARIS GREEN FACE-OFF we had talked about eco-friendly dry cleaning service Blanc and had talked briefly about the harm of « Perc » dry-cleaning? Conventional dry-cleaning relies on soaking clothes in a petroleum-based solvent called Perchlorethylene, or “Perc” as it’s often known. Perc is highly toxic, a well known carcinogen and a renowned air, soil and water pollutant, it’s banned in countries like France and Denmark but not in the UK.
With her decision to live as consciously as possible, (eating mostly vegan, learning to compost and walking more than driving) The Peahen decided to go green when she was looking to have dress dry-cleaned. And she discovered eco-friendly dry cleaning was an expensive thing! Did this limit her ability to go green when it came to eco-friendly dry cleaning?
To set the context of importance of eco-friendly dry cleaning, she writes – PERC-based cleaning is still incredibly pervasive. The EPA says approximately 28,000 U.S. companies listed as ‘dry cleaners’ use PERC, that’s roughly 80% of the existing 34,756 cleaners. And the outlook for change isn’t encouraging. Right now, California is the only state to enact legislation to phase out PERC by 2023. Cali is as big and as green as they come, but one state can’t do the work for a nation.
Read on to discover:

The real danger from PERC
If dry-cleaning is really dry or uses water
Are brands using this label to add an allure of luxury to their garments or to avoid the finger being pointed at them if their clothes get damaged during the cleaning process
To learn about 4 other kinds of specialty cleaning – Hydrocarbon, Liquid Silicone, Carbon-dioxide & Professional Wet Cleaning!

Continue reading here to learn all about eco-friendly drycleaning …
Thank you so much Kasi a.k.a The Peahen for this very informative read! So now that you readers will be wiser about dry-cleaning or rather specialty cleaning, do let us know in comments below of your own experience.