Tuesday, February 2, 2010

The Sequel

Ever wonder if any one in Hollywood has a new idea? I mean how many Rockys, Terminators, Pirates , and Alvins can they posssibly make? Then we have old tv shows like the Brady Bunch, Starky and Hutch and The Addams Family made into movies. While enjoyable in my youth - I really peferred to just remember those with my rose colored glasses that made me think they were great. And lets not even talk about Bewitched.... oh poor Elizabeth Montgomery must have been twitching her nose in heaven hoping to make that disaster disappear. And who in the right mind ever thought that remaking classics like The Day the Earth Stood Still or War of the Worlds was a good idea? Ok - no one in Hollywood has a right mind - so what was I thinking!! But I say here and now - any one touches The Thin Man - well that is when I toss my popcorn and never spend another $9.50 for a movie again. No one can beat William Powell and Myrna Loy. No one else could possibly be Nick and Nora Charles or heck no other dog could be Asta.

So now you say - why is she ranting about sequels? Well because this is a sequel.... but I think it's a good one. Of course maybe it's just that I'm seriously serious about care labels. By now you know what care labels look like and how important to look for them before you buy. But this is the sequel .... what if you did all that and still you have The Nightmare on Elm Street happen?

So here's the nightmare - your black and white shirt has machine wash cold tumble dry. Since you are now a care label reader you do exactly what the label says and like the disaster movie the black fades all over the white.( are you hearing the music from Psycho in your head right now?) Or ( keep that music going) you take a matching khaki blouse and skirt that says dry clean only to the cleaners and it comes back not matching - the blouse is khaki and the skirt is green. What happened. Like the audience that says to the beautiful blonde - run. Run back to the store where you bought it.

How does stuff like that happen? How often does that happen?

Ok how does it happen - well it can be mislabeled. Sometimes when a manufacturer is making thousands of garments some one picks up the wrong box of labels and sews them in the garments. Sometimes like in the white and black example the dye was not properly set. That is fairly common and oh so simple to do. But to save a few pennies - it does not get done. And the now mismatched khaki - well the skirt was originally green and once again to save money the manufacturer over -dyed the skirt. That means the dyed a green skirt khaki to match the blouse.

How often does this happen - well we have a book chock full of stuff like this. But mercifully for all of us - only about 10% of garments have problems. Even high priced garments like Tommy Hilfiger shirts have had problems. Tommy Hillfiger in the 1990's was the Creature from the Black Lagoon of problem shirts. His were so bad that the Federal Trade Commission fined his company and made Tommy put a 1-800 number in the shirts for problems. And thus Tommy learned his lesson and spent the few pennies extra to set the dyes. But it took hundreds of drycleaners sending shirts for analysis to get this done.

So if you go back to the store where you bought the problem garment and they are no help. Do not give up - you can do more. You can call the manufacturer. Hey its not hard to do. I've done it and believe me so can you. In every garment is a RN number. ( gotta be there by law) That number is registered with the FTC for each manufacturer. So you can call me and I can help. Yep I have a big book of RN numbers. When you call - have the offending garment in your hands. That way you can accurately describe it and if asked can give the lot numbers or style numbers if they are in the garment. Then you explain what happened and most of the time the manufacturer will help you return the garment.

But if all this fails ..... you are still not done. Yep you are like those zombies that just keep on coming. You can ask your drycleaner to have the garment analyzied. Or you can be like Dracula and go for the jugular - write the FTC. (Federal Trade Commission c/o Correspondence Branch , Washington D.C. 20580)

Most drycleaners and most manufacturers do a good job. But if you have a problem with a garment - do not just let it go. If the store won't help( though most good stores will) keep going. It is important that you get what you paid for - a good garment that can be cleaned. ( because none of you bought spot clean only right?).

So now will care labels keep popping up in this blog like Alfred Hitchcock in his movies? Probably. But for now - I'll be moving on to other subjects. But hey if Indiana Jones can come back and Star Wars can have a prequel - so can care labels.