Can the new home dry-cleaning products reproduce that oh-so-fresh-from-the-cleaner's scent? 

Confession of a dry-cleaning addict: I don't care if my clothes are clean. I just want them to smell nice. I hear this is a side effect of giving up cigarettes—I just quit after 10 years of smoking, and I now spend a lot of time sniffing smoky garments and a lot of money getting them dry-cleaned, even the ones without a "dry-clean only" label. I complained to friends about the skyrocketing costs (last month I was the third-highest spender at my local cleaner's) and learned a lot had changed in fabric care while I was busy smoking. In fact, a new market had been born: home dry-cleaning products.

But let's back up for a moment: What exactly is dry cleaning? Technically, it's not even dry. It's just a process that wets clothes with something other than water—something that isn't likely to shrink fabric or the threads that hold a garment together and that doesn't destroy fussy hems, delicate materials like cashmere and silk, or the linings that give shape to jackets and dresses. That something is perchloroethylene, a chemical solvent. The Environmental Protection Agency says it's safe to wear, but I wouldn't drink it.

Deemed moderately toxic, perchloroethylene is in the same category as chemicals like nail polish remover, bleach, and gasoline. Sounds harsh, but keep in mind that these are usual suspects in households and would only be harmful if you used them to do something for which they were not intended—like replacing rum in a tropical cocktail. The International Fabricare Institute, an organization for professional dry cleaners in existence since 1833, agrees with the EPA that you shouldn't be overly fearful of perchloroethylene, comparing it to saccharin—another "safe" compound that gives lab rats cancer; I do drink the latter but will pass on the former.

Safety fears aside, it's pretty great stuff for spiffing up your clothes—though maybe not as essential as some fabric care tags would have you believe. Because the Federal Trade Commission requires only one care instruction per label, even if more than one applies, it's hard to figure whether you're supposed to dry-clean something or not. According to Cheryl Mendelson's Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House, "a label that says 'dry-clean' tells you neither that you can nor that you cannot also wash the article without harming it."

But my goal wasn't to see what I could hand-wash. My goal was to learn whether the home cleaning products could match a professional dry cleaner's ability to get smells out of clothing. I tried three methods: Febreze, a spray that promises to eliminate pesky odors from fabrics; Dryel, a home dry-cleaning kit (both products are made by Procter & Gamble); and my professional dry cleaner, Eddy's.

Assembling the Troops
I rounded up three long-sleeved, button-down shirts, typically the kind I send to the cleaners even though they could be washed and ironed at home. Soiling them with cigarette smoke was out of the question for my newly purified sense of smell, but I had something equally foul at my disposal: my husband's sweat. Since the objective was to get the shirts as stanky as possible, after he wore them I put them in a plastic bag with a pound of jumbo-shrimp shells wrapped in wax paper. I left the bag on my balcony overnight in 82-degree heat to marinate. The next day, the shirts would have put a longshoreman to shame.

The Experiments

Method: Professional Dry Cleaner

Shirt: Worn for 16 hours, including on subway platforms in 93-degree heat, to a smoky pub where greasy burgers and four pints of beer were consumed, and, finally, to Madison Square Garden for a Radiohead concert. (And, of course, they got the shrimp-shell treatment.)

Cost: $4.50 per shirt (this is dry cleaning, remember, which is more expensive than wash-and-press jobs).