Garment Steamers are relatively modern to todays marketplace. They came about in the early 1940s when it was the norm for men to wear a Fedora or other type of hat. To keep the hat in shape people would stretch, shape and block the hat over a tea kettle. A patent was filed during that time for the Jiffy Steamers Model J-1, the first modern garment steamer.
There are three basic types of garment steamers available today the Commercial Steamer used by dry cleaners; a medium sized garment steamer used by tailors or dress makers, and hand-held garment steamers for the business traveler or someone without time to iron.
A good garment steamer, such as one by Jiffy Steamers, is up to five times faster than ironing and can extend the life of your clothes since they relax the fibers. An iron, on the other hand, crushes and flattens the fibers thereby damaging the garment.
Steamers are also perfect for tight places such as shirt collars where an iron would have a hard time reaching, just shoot some steam on the collar and its wrinkle free, its as easy as touch and go. Garment steamers can also be used on just about any fabric unlike your traditional iron where you have to watch the heat setting, to hot and you scorch the material, to cold and the wrinkles dont come out. Take a tough fabric such as velvet, for example, where Ironing is out of the question; steam it and your wrinkle free in just a few seconds with no fear of damage.
If you have a trip to go on; a hand-held garment steamer may be the perfect solution. Its quick and its easy to use. No longer will you have to spend a fortune sending your clothes to the hotel laundry or asking the concierge to bring you up an ironing board.
For a shirt, you would just gently touch the head of the steamer to the shirt starting at the collar area and working your way down to the bottom. You need to actually touch the shirt since both the steam and the steamer head are important for a smooth looking finish. Pants are just as easy to steam using the same method.
However, garment steamers are not just isnt for trips. You can use it for all kinds of things around the house. Take the wrinkles out of living room curtains, clean your cars upholstery, clean your favorite cloth easy chair or couch, that dreary cloth shower curtain in the bathroom give it a second life with a quick steam, their so gentle you can even use them on wigs.
Once you start using garment steamers you will find an endless amount of things that you can de-wrinkle with steam.
