The modern garment steamers that have become so popular lately have done so because they are much better at taking the wrinkles out of your clothes and much faster as well. Clothes can be quickly hung on a normal hanger, then you take your handheld steamer, or wand, and blow high-temperature steam through your clothes and the wrinkles seem to just disappear before your eyes, you won’t believe it. But, there are still a few holdouts that firmly believe in ironing clothes, so let’s take a look at a few of the pros and cons of each.
The first comparison that I want to make is the final look, which above all is the reason you’re ironing or steaming in the first place. Your old time iron will get the job done, however, the pockets never look just exactly right unless you take the extra time to get inside the pocket, around the edges and flatten everything out just right as you’re ironing. Around the buttons are another problem when ironing. Unless you take the extra time to go around each button, use two hands to pull the cloth flat and the point of the iron to get every little spot, the button area is never going to look quite right. The steamer, on the other hand, just blows right through the pockets and around the buttons, and then the fabric just flattens out without ever using two hands. So on this point garment steamer wins.
Next, take a look at removing odors from clothes that normally need to be dry cleaned. Your basic iron will do nothing to remove cigarette smoke odors or perspiration odors from fabric. If anything, it will burn the smells into your clothes and make them harder to remove, and possibly increase the odor. Your garment steamer will blast these odors right out of the clothing with super high-temperature steam as if they were being dry cleaned. And additionally, if you’re clothes have the chemical smell left over from the dry cleaners, the steamer can remove that as well. As far as removing odors from clothes the garment steamer wins.
When it comes to cleaning draperies, many of the fabrics are extremely sensitive to the wash machine agitation and detergents. And afterward ironing drapes is an incredibly difficult task because of all the many pleats and seams that need to be carefully positioned with not only two hands, but, special ironing board attachments.
The steamer takes all this in stride, and can actually steam clean your draperies as they hang naturally at your windows. Thus, saving you the time of taking them down, taking them to the dry cleaner, then picking them up and rehanging them. The garment steamer tackles cleaning the drapes by saving you many hours of extra work and money for the dry cleaning, plus the incredible difficulty of using a regular iron.
Finally, let’s take a look at the difference in the longevity of your clothes and fabrics when treated with steam or ironed the old-fashioned way. Many times and iron will leave a slight sheen on the clothing that can be seen by the naked eye. This sheen is actually a slight melting of the outer layer of the fabric, this leads to a rapid decay and early failure of the material. The steamer doesn’t melt the fabric at any time, completely removes dirt and grime that could lead to premature wear, then leaves clothing looking perfectly pressed each time.
Just these quick comparisons show that the conventional iron will eventually be something only sold in antique shops (perhaps in a few decades) and most modern homes will have the garment steamer to replace the ironing and so much more.
