While money laundering is rife, Kristina Chetcuti takes time out to find out about a different kind of laundering… the real one… and meets the
man who has made stain removal his life’s mission.

He paws at the stain, peers at it closely, sniffs it, lifts it up to the light, peers at it some more, then comes the declaration: “We’ll try”.

The glint in his eyes, however, tells you that by the end of day, the stubborn stain on the pristine white table cloth which your mother lent you will be gone forever, and you’re awash with great relief.

Emanuel Azzopardi’s life revolves around the challenges of splotches and blotches, smudges and spatters. He’s won international awards for his spot removing, he’s topped international examinations, but mostly he’s the name whispered to you by word of mouth when you’re desperate to save a horribly stained outfit that you absolutely love and that no other laundry in Malta has managed to salvage.

“Every stain is a challenge for me,” he says by way of introduction. He’s seen it all – oil stains, moth marks, discolouration, melted buttons, bleeding colours, shrinkage – on all sorts of fabrics, be it quilts, carpets, wedding gowns, evening dresses, silk blouses, tablecloths, soft toys, giant soft toys and even antique heirloom christening robes.

Invariably, the soiled items will be picked up later looking pretty much brand new.

Mr Azzopardi, who is turning 70 next year, started his laundry business off the bus. “I used to wake up in the morning and tell my wife ‘Today I’m doing Balzan.’ I’d catch the bus and go knocking door-to-door asking people if they had any soiled clothes which no laundry had managed to clean,” he says.

He would put the clothes in a garbage bag and after a whole morning of knocking, he’d hoist the bag on his shoulder, return home to Ħamrun by bus, and start hand-washing. He always managed, thanks in part to his City and Guilds knowledge of fabrics and the fact that his brother-in-law was a chemistry professor and would suggest chemicals for particularly stubborn stains. “Slowly, I started building a customer base,” he says.

He was 32-years-old and had just been made redundant from his managerial post at the Preluna Laundry. He had spent all his working life – from age 17 – toiling away in laundries, from machine repairs, to clothes alterations, to cleaning. The day he lost his job, he went home distraught. “What do I do now?” he asked his wife, Angela.

She had no doubt in her mind what he should do. “Open your own dry cleaning,” she said.

He had no shop, no car and no laundry machines, and no bank wanted to give him a loan – he only had the support of his wife and his determination. “There were times when I asked myself: ‘What am I doing?’ ”

Bit by bit, he saved enough to buy his first laundry machine. It was a second-hand dry-cleaner, a Suprema, which set him back Lm9,000 (€20,000). He still uses it and shows it off proudly.  “If you gave me a million euros, I’d still buy this today”.

Soon after, he got a permit to open a laundry in Naxxar Road, Birkirkara. Apart from the Suprema, his machines were past their lifespan and had often been given to him as payment in kind for consultancy services.

Every stain is a challenge for me

He called his laundry Queen’s, “for Our Lady – she’s the queen of the rosary”. He stares at the rosary beads hanging on the handles of the huge machines lining the factory floor.

His faith rewarded him: inside a year, he had a major breakthrough. He got an ironing contract with Pedra, then a new trouser manufacturer. “We had to iron 900 trousers a day. My wife and I were ironing 100 trousers per hour,” he says.

That contract led to others, and soon he was working every day from 6am to midnight. Eventually he moved to larger premises in Mosta, where he’s been based for the last 15 years.

He attributes his success to  always building his business step-by-step “I never raced ahead of my means.” His two children, 44 and 40, work in the business too. His son is his right-hand man, and his daughter runs a separate laundry. “Sometimes I look at this and say, is it possible that I have this?”

His customer base today includes people from all walks of life and its fair share of celebrities visiting or filming locally. He mostly recalls Brad Pitt, who liked his trousers creased from the knee downwards. “Very odd, it must be some American fashion.” Mr Azzopardi adds when Mr Pitt was here filming By the Sea, quite a few wine stains had to be removed from his shirts.

We discuss wine stains. How do you remove pesky red wine stains from coloured textiles? I tell him I douse the stain in white wine and ask if I am doing the right thing. “Well, it will dilute it, but really and truly, you’ll just be creating another sugar stain. You’re better off drinking that white wine,” he quips. The secret, he says, is to use hydrogen peroxide or vinegar mixed with bicarbonate of soda. “But – it depends on the fabric,” he insists.

His dream, now that he is past retirement age, is a course at Mcast on fabric knowledge and spotting and stain removal, and what products to use with which textures. “It’s all fine to use off-the-shelf whitening powder, but sometimes you have to be aware some whiteners make the colour vanish too.”

He is passionate on the topic and keeps himself constantly updated with new literature. Over the years he has taken specialist courses in Italy and Austria. He often consults the Textile Institute in London and regularly corresponds with the American International Fabric Institute, often passing on some of his own findings and solutions. In 2003 and 2007 the American institute awarded him for excellency following rigorous stain-removal competitions.

His regret is that the quality of clothes today is going downhill. “I can easily date a garment simply by looking at it. Today it’s all about mass production – you can tell from the colour, the cut and the sewing.” Even washing labels, he says, are often just put in at random. And he is very adamant that he doesn’t believe in designer labels. “There is no such thing as a clothes brand, I can tell you that. All clothes are the same today,” he says.

Even the use of laundry services is changing. “Lifestyles are increasingly hectic. Today I have clients who send me all their laundry every week,” he says.

He points to a rack of shirts waiting to be ironed. “Many people don’t bother with ironing any more – they wash the clothes and send them to be ironed here.” He says of all the household chores, ironing is the one that people hate most. “In fact, it has become very difficult for me to find pressers. Soon, I’ll have to invest in ironing equipment.”

He’s always on the lookout for new technology. “Whenever I go abroad on holiday, my first stop is always a dry cleaners,” he says. His wife is used to it, and goes shopping while he spends hours talking to launderers about their cleaning processes, swapping information. Quite possibly she forgives him, because at home he does all the laundry and ironing too. “I can’t possibly do other people’s and not do ours, can I?”

“I love my job too much,” Mr Azzopardi says. “The minute I spot a stain, I will have already cleaned it with my eyes.”

Emanuel’s tips for stubborn stains

▪ Never wash pure wool items, they will never be the same again – even if you handwash them.

▪ When you buy a new, coloured garment wash it by itself with six colour catchers in the drum.

▪ Remove a wine stain on a white table cloth by washing it in the washing machine with bleach.

▪ Never rub a stain, always tap it to break it and open the fibre.

▪ Mist a stain and smear the circle of the stain so that you don’t leave the shape of a circle, then dry with a hairdryer.

▪ Remove oil stains with kitchen degreaser spray (sgrassatore).

▪ Remove coffee and tea stains by dabbing them with vinegar and bicarbonate of soda.

▪ Remove lipstick stains by spraying a degreaser and then handwashing the item. 

▪ Remove peach stains with bleach if the item is white.

▪ Strawberry stains can be removed by dabbing with vinegar.

▪ Bloodstains can be removed by handwashing with soap.