How do you spruce up a man's suit without sending it for dry cleaning?

[Lilymaid]

DS1 is coming home for the weekend. He is a student and has a summer internship in the city. He has one suit to wear for work with two pairs of trousers. As he is half way through the internship his trousers are looking a bit manky but I haven't time to send them for dry cleaning (and he wouldn't think of doing this for himself in London). Any recommendations on how to spruce up his suit trousers, which have now got a few stains on them and probably have a bit of a whiff? I thought that perhaps a spray of Febreze followed by a whizz in the tumble drier might help (plus a go at removing any stains). Neither I nor he can afford to buy another suit at the moment! Any suggestions?

Don't put them in the tumble dryer with stains on as the heat will set the stains. You can try sponging them off first. If they come off then you can get good results with an iron and a damp cloth - really brings trousers up nicely. But once again, only do this once you have removed any stains as the heat from the iron will set them solid. Unless your local dry cleaner can do them as a quick turnaround Saturday morning?

well - you can try what I did the other night in desperation. I used to have one of those home dry cleaning kits but ran out of the stuff. But I thought the prinicple of this would work and it did!

I used some vinegar on a cotton cloth to take marks off the jacket, sprayed some white distilled vinegar mixed 50/50 with water on the under arm smelly bits (sorry tmi) and then i put it along with a damp face cloth and a sheet of tumble dryer softner into a pillow case, then I tumbled it for 10 mins.

The jacket came out a little damp (because of the face cloth I guess), but the vinegar seems to have taken away all the nasty smells and stains, and the tumble dryer sheet left it smelling nice. I just hung it up and let it dry ...looks good.

Will definitely do it again.

My great grandmother once told me that duroing the war, one trick of making your shiny suit look less knackered was to bruch cold black coffee onto the shiny parts.....i've tried it on dark coloured suits and it did work...

Thanks for the suggestions. It looks as though old fashioned remedies are the best bet. I shall have a go when DS1 comes home at the weekend. Meanwhile, I have DS2s washing to do (just returned from a two week rugby tour), so have changed from my normal working mum mode into professional washer woman.