Out of the Closet

Dryel At-Home Dry Cleaner

By Charlotte on December 16, 2014 4:25 PM

I have a love/hate relationship with Bob's Tommy Bahama shirts. I love the way they look and feel (so soft!). But I hate taking care of them.

Most have to be dry cleaned or hand washed and hung dry. Sorry to be a whiner but either way is a problem. Dry cleaning is an expense we try our best to avoid these days. And, after line drying, Bob's Tommy Bahamas get really stiff and require heavy-duty steaming or ironing. Guess who gets that job?

So naturally, I said "Sign me up!" when the folks at Dryel offered to let me test drive some free samples of their at-home dry cleaning kit.

What the Experts Say

This patented, at-home process uses the power of steam to clean and deodorize clothing in the dryer. It safely and thoroughly cleans clothes, protects colors and preserves shape without any harsh chemicals.

What I Tested

I tried a Dryel Starter Kit including the new, improved Fabric Protection Bag that can be used up to 30 times, Booster Spray for pretreating stains and two ULTRAcleaning Cloths.

Pops of red on Dryel's new package make it easy to spot.

What I like

Dryel is a quick and easy way to clean dry-clean only, special-care and hard-to-clean garments. You just use the Booster Spray on any stains or heavily soiled areas. Then put your clothes in the Dryel bag, add a cleaning cloth and toss the bag in a regular or HE dryer.

Dryel's new, improved Fabric Protection Bag holds up to five garments.

You can use Dryel on everything from scarves to outerwear so long as the fabric is not leather, velvet, suede, fur, silk or rayon. Of course, I started with one of Bob's Tommy Bahamas. And since you can do up to five items at once, I added: 

• A long-sleeve black top and gold-and-black skirt that's one of my go-to holiday looks
• A green-plaid skirt that's comfy for running errands

With Dryel, you can freshen holiday outfits like this in 15 minutes.

Normally, I dry clean the skirts and hand wash the top. But thanks to Dryel, I avoided the expense of dry cleaning, the hassle of hand washing and hanging or laying things flat to dry, and our clothes were done in record time. I'm talkin' 30 minutes on medium heat in the dryer for deep cleaning. Make that 15 minutes if they only need freshening up.

As recommended, we pulled our items out and hung them up as soon as the buzzer went off. Besides smelling nice and fresh, they had practically no wrinkles. The colors looked good as new and nothing shrunk. Whew!

Here are our clothes, including that troublesome Tommy Bahama (bottom left), after 30 minutes in the dryer with Dryel.

Both my holiday outfit (top photo above) and running-around skirt were ready to party. And Dryel even tamed that troublesome Tommy Bahama (left above). Instead of devoting hours and hours to hand washing, line drying and ironing it, I was free after half an hour in the dryer.

Dryel did such a great job on our clothes, I'm thinkin' why stop there? They say it's a quick and easy way to clean tablecloths, napkins and other linens too. Spend less time and money on laundry? Now, that's a gift for the holidays!

Out-of-Pocket

A fraction of the cost of traditional dry cleaning:

• $6.99 for starter kit that cleans up to 10 garments
• $8.99 for refill kit that cleans up to 30 garments 

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Available at major retailers everywhere, both the starter kit (left) and the refill come in a new package with bright red accents so they're easy to spot.

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I'd like to shout out a big "Thank you!" to Dryel for providing free samples for review and testing and to my understanding hubby and photographer Bob for letting me experiment on one of his favorite shirts.

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