We started because we were tired of rushing to the dry cleaner.
Twenty-five years later, we’re still family-owned, still in the Bay Area, and still building our whole business around one thing: your time.
Our story
PurpleTie came about as a direct result of our own displeasure with having to rush to the traditional dry cleaner at the most inconvenient times. We are dedicated to serving you with convenience, efficiency, quality, and care for the environment like no other.
By adding complementary services alongside our fabric-care roots, we keep finding new ways to help you strike that work/life balance, which can otherwise be so elusive in a life filled with to-dos.
Founded and operated by Iranian immigrants for more than 25 years, the business is now being passed on to second-generation brothers. Still family-run, still local, still serving the Bay Area from San Francisco and the Peninsula to the East Bay and South Bay.
Family-owned since 1999
Three things we won’t compromise on
Customer service
More than anything, the PurpleTie brand is synonymous with world-class customer service. Our customers know they can depend on us before, during, and after every order. We took an industry riddled with horror stories and turned it on its ear. Reliability, responsibility, and accountability are the words we live by.
Quality
Unlike the typical cleaner, we promise an unconditional satisfaction guarantee on both the quality of our work and the timeliness of our pickups and deliveries. If you are ever unsatisfied with any part of your PurpleTie experience, we will do whatever it takes to make it right.
Convenience
We want to be wherever is most convenient for you. Whether that means service at your home or at your work, we come to you instead of making you find time to come to us. Between our @Home and @Work programs, there are more ways and places to use PurpleTie than most people expect.
Our History: Since 1999
In the beginning
Originally founded as CleanSleeves, PurpleTie started as a part-time experiment to test a revolutionary idea in the fabric-care industry: the first online dry cleaning service in the nation to offer internet-based, on-demand pickup and delivery of dry cleaning and laundry.
The consumer response was tremendous. What started as an experiment soon turned into full-time jobs for our founders.
@Work is born
Customers got hooked on the convenience of home service and helped us branch into a brand-new market: onsite cleaning for employees at their workplace. HR managers quickly saw how we could help their people strike that elusive work/life balance with delivery right at the office.
Our @Work program launched quietly, to rave reviews and organic word-of-mouth growth that carried us to becoming the largest @Work provider in the industry.
How we became PurpleTie
Our founders landed in the middle of a classic David and Goliath scenario. A competing company called PurpleTie announced its entry into the identical business and market, backed by venture capitalists and wealthy investors who planned to own the market in a big way.
As fate would have it, David won again. PurpleTie folded and taught its investors a lesson in the complexities of what otherwise looks like a simple business. CleanSleeves went on to purchase its assets and rebranded as the new and improved PurpleTie in March 2001.
Acquisitions
- March 2001CleanSleeves purchased the assets of PurpleTie and introduced the new PurpleTie.
- October 2004We acquired Pressing Business, a competing @Work service provider.
- March 2006We acquired Silicon Valley Cleaners, another competing @Work and @Home provider.
The year we went green
PurpleTie launched a series of initiatives to make us environmentally conscious and accountable in every area of the business: a 100% perc-free cleaning process, efficient lighting and steam generation, a recycling and reuse program for nearly all our used hangers and plastic bags, and a carbon offset program to bring our fleet to a zero carbon footprint.
COVID and beyond
Needless to say, COVID rocked our world, but we’re still standing. We had just built out and moved into our bigger and better headquarters — think Disneyland of garment care — that very month, so there was no time to celebrate the milestone.
Instead we scrambled, prayed, made some very tough decisions, and pivoted quickly to a broader @Home offering. Thanks to our loyal customers, by 2022 we were once again on stable footing, with our hopes of serving you for many more years intact.
We own every part of the business
From the electric vans at your curb to the facility where your clothes are cleaned, we own and operate every step in between. Nothing gets handed to a partner, so quality, care, price, and accountability are never out of our hands.
Our electric fleet
Every pickup and delivery runs on our own all-electric vans, and the fleet’s remaining footprint is offset to zero through TerraPass. Zero tailpipe emissions on every Bay Area route.
Our facility
One state-of-the-art facility in Hayward cleans every order. It is the only place your garments will ever go, never sent out to a third party.
Our people
PurpleTie drivers, pressers, and tailors handle your clothes from doorstep to doorstep. They are our people, not contractors.
We’ve taken green to a whole new level
We guarantee a 100% perc-free cleaning process, and we brought the industry its first carbon-neutral fleet and production process. As proudly displayed on all of our vans, our delivery fleet’s carbon footprint is reduced to zero via TerraPass. Being green is an all-encompassing effort, and we’re making sure you get the best cleaning experience with the least environmental impact, all at great prices.
100% perc-free
Our commitment to being green starts with a 100% perchloroethylene-free dry cleaning process. It is better for your health, and it cares for the air we breathe and the ground water below our feet.
We do it without sacrificing our ability to truly clean your clothes, something many “green” cleaners can’t boast. Environmentally sustainable practices, with no compromise in cleaning quality.
A carbon-neutral fleet
Every pickup and delivery runs on our own all-electric vans, and our fleet’s remaining footprint is offset to zero through TerraPass. Zero tailpipe emissions on every Bay Area route.
Fewer plastic bags
We provide a permanent, reusable PurpleTie bag with your first order. If you still need one, simply write “provide me with a permanent bag” with your next order. It comes with a barcoded name tag that identifies the bag as yours.
Reusing, repurposing, recycling
Hangers: we recycle or reuse metal hangers, all of them. No hanger should ever hit a landfill. Include your extra metal hangers with your next batch of clothes and we’ll take it from there.
Garment covers: the bags we use to package your clean clothes are made of 50% recycled materials and are recyclable through plastic bag bins at major grocery stores. A repurposing trick in the meantime: tie off the end where the hangers come through and you have a great trash can liner.
We’ll never lose that focus
Thanks to our loyal customers, we continue to grow and expand our service area and customer base through nearly 100% word-of-mouth referrals. No one knows what the future holds, but you can count on us to keep being of service whenever and wherever it’s convenient for you.
This commitment to serving you, and giving you world-class customer service in everything we do, is what you’ve told us matters most. We’ll never lose that focus, no matter how far we spread our wings.
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