Steamed Clean

Anyone who knows me knows I hate ironing. In fact, I just don’t do it. Ever. Ok, hardly ever. I iron only when the occasion calls for being 100% wrinkle free (e.g., big business meeting, formal events, etc). I don’t mind a wrinkle here or there, certainly not enough to warrant hauling out the ironing board (which currently lives in the back of one of our closets and is a huge pain the butt to get in/out) and spending an inordinate amount of time to get (what I feel are) minimal results.

Needless to say I don’t iron Jason’s clothes either. If I am not going to take the time to iron my own, I am definitely not going to iron someone else’s (particularly when they are totally capable of doing it themselves). Jason used to iron all his work clothes before wearing (well 90% of the time, anyway). Given the pain that is ironing in our humble abode (see above), that number has taken a hit as well. Which is why he was totally onboard with the idea of using some of our leftover wedding giftcards to buy a garment steamer.

We have friends the swear by these devices and say they are just as good and much easier to use than the standard iron. We decided to give it a shot, especially since it would essentially be free to us (thanks to our family and friends’ generosity!) I did my due diligence trying to find the best garment steamer on the market. General consensus was that the Jiffy brand steamers were #1. Unfortunately, they do not sell that particular brand at either of the two stores where we still had giftcards—Bed, Bath, and Beyond and Macys. Since we were trying to go the free route, we decided to go with the runner-up : the Rowenta Precision Valet.

Originally $259.99 at Macys, it was on sale for $169. Definitely not cheap. And probably not money we would have spent if  it had been coming from our own pockets but we decided to give a shot.

It was pretty easy to put together (I was able to do by myself in about 15 minutes while Jason was putting in some hours at work on Sunday). I tried it out on two pretty tough items of clothing in terms of wrinkles and ironing—1) 100% cotton pants and 2) a blouse made of silk and cotton.

                           

The verdict? As you can see from the before and after shots, the results were pretty good. To be fair, these are the most wrinkle-prone pants I own so the fact that it got the worst of the wrinkles out is saying something. Obviously the steamer is not going to give you that crisp look that the iron will (although there is apparently a crease attachment that I have not yet tried out), but it’s going to get enough of the wrinkles out to make me happy. And it was certainly a bit easier to deal with than the iron.