TOTAL: 87/100

Dry cleaning has always been quite the conundrum for me. On the one hand, I want my nicer clothes to stay nice and smell fresh. On the other hand, I don’t have the time—or the cash flow—to run to the cleaners every time I wear my favorite cashmere sweater, silk slip dress or leather pants out on the town. After experiencing some major sticker shock upon my first visit to the cleaners (a $300 bill will do that to you), I’ve fallen into the bad, bad habit of simply making a pile of my used, dry clean-only items until I’m ready to spend a few hundred dollars to get them refreshed. (Which, as you’ve probably already guessed, is few and far between.) The result? After one wear, many of my favorite, most high-quality clothing items sit unworn for months at a time collecting dust in the corner for so long that I sometimes forget I own them. Or at least they did, before I discovered the LG Styler (from $800).

The LG Styler is a laundry appliance that’s designed to “refresh” your clothes between cleanings by steaming them to reduce odors and remove allergens and bacteria. It works when clothes are placed on one of two included “moving hangers,” which help to shake out dust, allergens and odors by vibrating throughout the steaming process.

I have been using the LG Styler consistently over the course of a year on just about every delicate, hand-wash and dry clean-only item I own, from real silks and cashmeres to bathing suits and polyurethane pants. I've used it on my down-blend coat. The only thing I haven’t tried it with is real leather and fur (though there’s a cleaning setting for those, too).

Before I could use it, however, I had to get it set up. I enlisted my boyfriend to put its drip tray and feet into place, which involved manhandling the awkwardly sized machine in a manner that my 5-foot 2-inch frame was not exactly equipped for. (It also comes with anti-tipping equipment that the company recommends installing.)

I ran into a slight snag when I realized that its cord, which is relatively short, was too far away from an outlet to be plugged in. Since it can’t be plugged into an extension cord (it’s a fire hazard) and everything was already set up, a bit of maneuvering was in order. I highly recommend making sure your cord reaches before you go forth with setup.

From there, it was onto the technical aspects. To access all of the Styler’s Wi-Fi features, which include additional cleaning cycles, energy monitoring and tech support (there’s a smart diagnosis feature that will even tell you what’s wrong should you encounter a problem), you’ll first need to connect it. This process is two-fold: First, you'll need to connect the appliance on the Styler’s own network from the Wi-Fi settings on your phone, which requires a special password. While there are instructions that tell you how to do this (enter the last four digits of the machine’s auto-generated network name twice), that last word of “twice” is easy to miss (or at least, it was for me on several occasions), resulting in a frustrating battle of wits.

Once I finally figured it out, I was able to move on to the second step and connect it to my home Wi-Fi by entering my regular password (no problems here).

Operation of the machine itself is pretty straightforward. You fill a removable water tank at the base, put your clothes on the hangers, turn on the power button and choose a setting by pushing a button on the touch-screen door. With such a wide variety of dirty clothing to clean, I tried quite a few settings, including the wool/knit cycle for my cashmere, the Wi-Fi-only Air Fresh cycle for my pleather pants as well as the normal and sanitary cycle (that’s the one that removes allergens and germs).  

Given my penchant for letting these items pile up, I initially ran this baby nonstop over the course of 24 hours. Much to my surprise, it worked straight through without a single error or issue. I have also used it many times since in a one-and-done scenario (like when I want to get my bathing suit fresh for an upcoming day of use).  

In March, I tested the appliance's durability when I moved it 1,800 miles from Chicago to the Tampa area in a bouncy moving truck POD. Spoiler alert? It handled the transport like a champ.

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Nicole Briese is PureWow's Commerce Director. With a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Michigan State University and more than 15 years of experience writing and editing shopping content, she has made a career for herself covering her favorite topics: fashion, lifestyle, travel and rock 'n' roll. She lives in Florida with her boyfriend and two cats, and she can usually be found stalking hairless animals on the internet. Check out her blog at nicolebjean.com. (You can also follow her on Twitter or Instagram.)