Different sources attribute the invention of Drycleaning to different people.
But the most popular theory is that someone called Jean-Baptiste Jolly once accidentally spilled kerosene from his kerosene lamp onto a linen table cloth.
There was a grease mark on the tablecloth, and when the ‘kerosene spot’ dried, the grease mark was gone.
He began experimenting and found that kerosene was indeed effective in removing stains.
He opened the first dry cleaning store between 1825 and 1845 (no one is sure) and continued using kerosene.
Soon other dry cleaners opened and began experimenting with different solvents (liquids with an ability to dissolve other substances).
Benzene & gasoline replaced kerosene at some places, but they were equally dangerous to handle and flammable.
By the mid-1900s, dry cleaners moved to perchloroethylene (more famously known as perc), and most use perc even today.
So, in essence, dry cleaning is not actually dry—just that it uses some liquid other than water.
A dry cleaning machine is like an industrial size washing machine.
Dry cleaners put clothes inside, fill the machine with perc, set the temperature at 30OC.
The machine agitates the clothes to scrub the stains away.
The perc that drains out is filtered to remove any impurities and is used again for another load.
Some dry cleaners claim they use the green method—this means they use liquified CO2 instead of perc.
