Cleaning & Safety
Every garment in our shop has been professionally cleaned and safety-checked before listing. Here's exactly what that means.
✅ Every garment is professionally cleaned before it reaches you
We do not list garments straight from donation. Every accepted item is laundered and ozone-sanitised by ACS Clothing — a specialist garment processing company — before it is photographed, graded, and listed in the shop.
How garments are cleaned
Step 1 — Laundering
Garments are professionally laundered to remove surface dirt, staining, and odour.
Step 2 — Ozone sanitisation
After laundering, garments are treated in ACS Clothing's industrial ozone chamber. Ozone is a naturally occurring gas that kills bacteria and fungi by breaking down their cell walls. After treatment, the ozone decomposes back into ordinary oxygen, leaving no chemical residue on the garment.
Step 3 — Condition grading
Once cleaned, each garment is inspected and assigned a condition grade before listing.
What ozone treatment does
Ozone treatment has been independently tested and shown to be highly effective against the types of bacteria and fungi most commonly found on worn garments:
-
Bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus and E. coli — both completely eliminated at the treatment levels used
-
Fungi such as Candida albicans and Aspergillus fumigatus — also eliminated at the treatment levels used
These tests were carried out on garments processed in ACS Clothing's own industrial ozone chamber, not just in a laboratory, so the results reflect real-world conditions.
Ozone also reaches areas that conventional cleaning methods can miss — including inside folds and layers of fabric — because it penetrates fabric as a gas rather than a liquid.
No chemical residue: Unlike some disinfectants, ozone leaves nothing behind on the garment. It is particularly suitable for compression garments worn against sensitive or easily irritated skin.
What We Don't Accept
To further protect buyers, we do not accept donations of garments that have been worn with open wounds or active skin sores. This is checked as part of our donation criteria and triage process.
See the full triage process →
Condition grades
After cleaning, every garment is assigned one of the following condition grades:
Grade | Description | Cleaning |
|---|---|---|
New with Tags | Original packaging, never worn | Ozone sanitisation only |
Excellent | No damage, tags may not be attached | Laundering + ozone sanitisation |
Very Good | No damage, may have light bobbling under 3×3cm | Spot cleaning if needed, then laundering + ozone sanitisation |
Based on laboratory tests
The ozone sanitisation process used by ACS Clothing has been the subject of independent scientific research conducted by Epelle et al., published in peer-reviewed journals including the Journal of Microbiological Methods, Ozone: Science & Engineering, and ACS Omega.
The research confirmed that ACS Clothing's industrial ozone chamber achieves effective bacterial and fungal inactivation on textile materials under real-world processing conditions.