A self-service laundry is a facility where clothes are washed and dried. They are known in the United Kingdom as launderettes or laundrettes, and in the United States, Canada, and Australia as laundromats (from the genericized trademark

Genericized trademark

A genericized trademark is a trademark or brand name that has become the colloquial or generic description for, or synonymous with, a general class of product or service, rather than as an indicator of source or affiliation as intended by the trademark's holder...

 of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation

Westinghouse Electric (1886)

Westinghouse Electric was an American manufacturing company. It was founded in 1886 as Westinghouse Electric Company and later renamed Westinghouse Electric Corporation by George Westinghouse. The company purchased CBS in 1995 and became CBS Corporation in 1997...

) or washaterias. George Edward Pendray

George Edward Pendray

George Edward Pendray was an American public relations counselor, author, foundation executive, and an early advocate of rockets and spaceflight.-Early life:...

 created the word "laundromat" for Westinghouse.

Staffed laundries

Some laundries employ staff to provide service for the customers. Minimal service centres may simply provide an attendant behind a counter to provide change, sell washing powder, and watch unattended machines for potential theft of clothing. Others allow customers to drop off clothing to be washed, dried, and folded. This is often referred to as Fluff & Fold, Wash-n-Fold, bachelor bundles, a service wash or full-service wash. Some staffed laundry facilities also provide dry cleaning

Dry cleaning

Dry cleaning is any cleaning process for clothing and textiles using a chemical solvent other than water. The solvent used is typically tetrachloroethylene , abbreviated "perc" in the industry and "dry-cleaning fluid" by the public...

 pick-up and drop-off. There are over 35,000 laundries throughout the United States. Similar services exist in the United Kingdom where the terms service wash or full-service wash are also in use.

Fluff n Fold services

The evolution of self-serve laundry services have been seen in some "fluff n fold" services provided by various laundromats. These services provide the end user with wash, dry, and folding services on a per pound basis. Some services offer free pickup and delivery as well as complimentary laundry bags as part of their customer appreciation. Additionally, dry-cleaning services have been known to utilize the pickup and delivery as a means to help generate additional revenue.

Wash-A-Teria (United States)

The first washateria was opened in 1936 in Fort Worth, Texas

Fort Worth, Texas

Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...

 by Noah Brannen. Most washaterias in the United States are fully automated and coin operated and generally unmanned, operating 24 hours a day.

Launderettes (United Kingdom)

The first UK launderette was opened on 9 May 1949 in Queensway (London)

Queensway (London)

Queensway is a bustling cosmopolitan street in the Bayswater district of west London. It contains many restaurants , pubs, letting agents, and high street stores...

. UK launderettes are mainly fully automated, coin operated and are either manned or unmanned. Some may be manned during fewer hours than the operating time each week. They are generally found only in urban and suburban areas and have been common features of urban life since the 1960s. In the last two decades there has been a decline in the number of launderettes, to approximately 3000 nationally.

Rapidly rising utility charges, premises rent and a lower purchase cost of domestic machines have been noted as principal reasons for the recent decline. High initial launch costs, specifically for commercial washing machines and dryers, have also been commented on as reasons for fewer new entrants into the market. Furthermore, machine updates can be prohibitively expensive, which has held back premises investment.

However, most UK households have bedding (such as duvets and comforters) which are far above the capacity of domestic machines, making launderettes the only means available for cleaning them.

Many of the manned operations in the UK have added value services such as ironing, dry cleaning and service washes, which prove popular to busy professionals, students, and senior citizens. Student accommodation blocks often have their own unmanned laundries, which are typically commercially run at a profit by the accommodation provider.

Local directories such as the Yellow Pages and Thomson only show those laundries that have chosen to pay for an entry in their directories, so trends are difficult to assess. However, cities such as London, Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds have significant numbers of launderettes, as do many coastal tourist areas.

The main manufacturers serving the UK in this market are Ipso Electrolux, Primus, and Maytag. Brands such as Speed Queen and Frigidaire are also regularly deployed, with most originating from Belgium and the USA.

Whilst the future of launderettes in the UK is not assured, domestic machine users experiencing breakdowns in the home, users of large bedding, and tourists are all potential customers, thereby making the provision valuable to the community.

In popular culture

• The film My Beautiful Laundrette
  My Beautiful Laundrette
  My Beautiful Laundrette is a 1985 British comedy-drama film directed by Stephen Frears from a screenplay by Hanif Kureishi. The story is set in London during the period when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, as shown through the complex—and often comical—relationships...
  
  was set in a launderette in London.
• The television soap opera EastEnders
  EastEnders
  EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...
  
  has a launderette as one of its focal locations, with several important characters having served as employees.
• "The world's hippest launderette" according to Wallpaper magazine is The Laundromat Cafe
  The Laundromat Cafe
  The Laundromat Cafe is the name of two cafés in Copenhagen, Denmark. The first one opened in Elmegade 15, Nørrebro in 2004 and the second one in Århusgade 38, Østerbro in 2006...
  
   in Copenhagen
  Copenhagen
  Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
  
  , Denmark. It opened in 2004 and the second one in 2007. While washing, people can enjoy the café and the free wireless internet connection.
• Scenes in launderettes have been used in television advertising such as one used by Levi-Strauss for their jeans, and a parody
  Parody
  A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
  
   by Carling Black Label.
• In the internet musical Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog, the eponymous character and his love interest often meet at a laundromat.
• Nivea
  Nivea (singer)
  Nivea B. Nash who performs under the mononym Nivea, is an American recording artist whose recordings reached the Billboard charts during the early 2000s. Nivea is known most for her singles "Don't Mess With My Man" and "Laundromat".-Early life:Hamilton was born in Savannah, Georgia, the youngest...
  
   wrote Laundromat, a song depicting the girlfriend, Nivea, of a man talking of how he has cheated on Nivea.
• The first act of The Young Ones
  The Young Ones (TV series)
  The Young Ones is a British sitcom, first broadcast in 1982, which ran for two series on BBC2. Its anarchic, offbeat humour helped bring alternative comedy to television in the 1980s and made household names of its writers and performers...
  
  episode "Bambi" concerns the main (and filthy) characters making their first trip to the launderette in almost three years. When one of the washing machines spits out the quartet's putrid clothing, Vyvyan decides to use a "special blend of psychology and extreme violence" to trick one of the machines: he mentions Felicity Kendal
  Felicity Kendal
  Felicity Ann Kendal, CBE is an English actor known for her television and stage work.Born in 1946, Kendal spent much of her childhood in India, where her father managed a touring repertory company. First appearing on stage at the age of nine months, Kendal appeared in her first film, Shakespeare...
  
  's underwear and then forces their laundry into a lustful machine.

External links

• Coin Laundry Association, a not-for-profit trade organization serving the self-service laundry industry