Dryel 101

This post is written in partnership with Dryel, I was selected to be a brand ambassador for them, but as always, all my views and opinions are my own.

When it comes to staying warm and cozy during the winter months, there is nothing I love more than a cashmere sweater, or perhaps merino wool, or basically any fiber where I know I'm going to find "Dry Clean" on the label.

Trips to the dry cleaners are costly and trying to find places using environmentally friendly cleaning methods is a challenge. My previous approach had always been hand-washing with gentle detergent and air drying, which while inexpensive, was tremendously time consuming. One of my super thick cardigans took three days to dry completely!

Dryel was a product I'd always been aware of, but never thought to try - would it really get my clothes clean? Would it really be okay to put something in the dryer I would never dare put in the dryer?

The Dryel starter kit includes environmentally responsible cleaning cloths which have no phosphate, perchloroethylene, or trichloroethylene, along with a spot cleaning spray, and a special bag to protect fabric by creating a temperature controlled environment. The starter kit can clean up to 20 garments when doing five at a time, but since I was cleaning bulky sweaters, I only did three as the clothes need some room to move around.

I started by checking my sweaters for any bad stains, food stains were given a good spritz with the booster spray and blotted with paper towels. Those came out pretty readily. Makeup was a bit tougher, while sweat stains on my white sweater were not going to budge.

Once I was finished spot cleaning, I put the sweaters into the bag with one of the cleaning cloths and popped them in my dryer for 30 minutes. Dryel instructs medium heat, but my dryer only has two settings, low and high, so I put them on low.

Call me a little crazy, but I decided to take measurements of a couple of my sweaters just so that I could be certain there was no shrinkage, and they all came out perfectly!

Using Dryel was so fast and easy - my sweaters smell clean and fresh, are wrinkle free, and ready to wear.

The starter kit which sells for $9.99 cleans up to 20 pieces, which means it only costs 50¢ per garment - a tiny fraction of dry cleaning costs - plus you can get a coupon for $1 off a starter kit.