There is very little to like about dry cleaning. When a garment has a "not for machine wash!!!' label, it generally means it will be worn once and left at the back of the cupboard, next to all the other worn-once, dry-clean-only tops, skirts and blouses.

And if you do take the time and pay the money to have an item dry-cleaned, it can feel like something of a gamble. Buttons go missing and old stains fail to be removed while new stains appear. A friend of mine swears that the entire dry-cleaning industry is a racket, one which involves your clothes getting taken behind the curtain, left in a pile for a week, and then handed back to you in a plastic wrapper without ever going near an actual cleaning machine. Imogen Fox, the Guardian's deputy fashion editor, tells me her local dry cleaners actually was a racket: a group of squatters took over when the owner went on holiday and ran the business on his behalf, minus any actual cleaning.

"To most consumers, what takes place behind the counter, where imposing machines rumble and steam hisses, is a mystery," writes Ray A Smith in the Wall Street Journal. "What exactly goes on back there? Other common questions: why do women's shirts often cost more to clean than men's, and why do only some stains come out?" So Smith endeavoured to find out.

Dry-clean only? Photograph: lucy kelvie@studio21photo.com

He highlights some studies which show lots of Americans are unhappy with random pricing and erratic service. It's worth pointing out that this issue may be more pressing in places such as New York and Los Angeles, where people are less likely to have a washing machine at home and tend to rely on laundry and dry-cleaning services a bit more.

This might be why there's an air of drama to the way Jezebel describes the process: "First it's tossed on a pile with everyone else's nasty, stained clothing and sorted by fabric, color, or stain. It's then pre-treated and placed in a large washing machine that uses solvents instead of water. The machine includes a receptacle that lets dry cleaners collect all the buttons that popped off. They're sewn back on so you never realize that your clothing was violently ripped apart in the machine."

It's at this point that it becomes clear that few people really understand what the dry-cleaning process actually involves.

As it's recently been announced that the industry will be forced to replace its most commonly used solvent, perchloroethylene (perc), by 2020 due to environmental issues, Smith puts together a great piece on what dry cleaning is and how it will change. Honestly, it's no easy feat to cover such a topic and not get TLDR syndrome, but Smith manages it.

In addition, the Guardian's graphics team has put together an easy-to-follow illustration (top). Click to enlarge and get the full picture.

• Click here to read The New Dirt on Dry Cleaners