How To Wash And Care For Your Dress Shirts

How To Wash And Care For Your Dress Shirts

You’ve bought an expen­sive dress shirt and it’s about time for a clean­ing. Now what? As men, we under­stand how frus­trat­ing this can be since we’ve prob­a­bly shrunk a shirt or two before. With the prop­er method, we will show you how to wash and care for your dress shirts.

We’ve out­lined some sim­ple rules, meth­ods, and tips on how to wash and care for your dress shirts. Just fol­low these and you’ll have that crispy new-shirt feel­ing after every clean­ing.

Everyday care for your dress shirts.

It’s impor­tant to check your dress shirts now and then to make sure there are no loose but­tons, unno­ticed stains, rips or wrin­kles. This is to catch prob­lems before it’s too late and cor­rect any­thing before you actu­al­ly need to wear it. This also helps pri­or to iron­ing.

Also, keep your dress shirts spaced a few inch­es apart on their hang­ers, let­ting them breathe and drape nat­u­ral­ly, pre­vent­ing poor form. So take the few min­utes to give a look over and see where any­thing may need some repair.

The use of round­ed hang­er ends can be seen through the shirt. This pre­vents any harsh dim­ples form­ing when hung to dry.

Washing & drying your dress shirts.

Giv­ing your shirts prop­er care and atten­tion is the most impor­tant step to pro­long­ing the life of your dress shirt. There are two choic­es with wash­ing: do it your­self or have it tak­en to the clean­ers.

Method 1: Washing & drying your shirts at home

1. Unbut­ton all but­tons, don’t for­get cuffs and col­lars.

2. Remove any col­lar stays. Some are fused into the col­lar, so leav­ing them in is not an issue.

3. Pre-treat any stains with deter­gent or spot clean (be care­ful and test in a small area first to check for col­or fast­ness). One great prod­uct to try is the col­lars and cuffs bar from The Laun­dress. This prod­uct works great for pre-treat­ing those tough ring around the col­lar stains.

4. Use the del­i­cate cycle (or hand-wash where avail­able) for light­weight fab­ric (e.g. Broad­cloths and Poplins). For heav­ier fab­rics (e.g. Oxfords or Pin­points), choose the nor­mal cycle.

5. Hot or warm water is per­fect­ly fine for whites or light col­ors. Use cold water for dark col­ors or col­ors that might bleed.

A typ­i­cal laun­dro­mat with indus­tri­al grade wash­ing machines and dry­ers.

6. For deter­gent, Woo­lite is a great choice. Avoid any­thing that is chlo­rine-based. It can turn that deep blue into a sky blue if you’re not care­ful. Also, fab­ric soft­en­er can coat your fab­ric, mak­ing it even hard­er to get those stains out so use them with cau­tion.

7. Use a spin cycle get most of the water out of the gar­ment, opt­ing for a slow­er speed for your del­i­cate fab­rics.

8. Once the wash cycle is com­plete, remove them quick­ly oth­er­wise let­ting them sit for too long will allow the fab­ric to devel­op wrin­kles.

9. Rather than using the dry­er, hang up the shirt to dry instead. Use round­ed hang­ers to avoid sharp hang­er marks once dry. More about why dry­ing is detri­men­tal to your shirt below.

10. Iron the shirts once they are slight­ly damp. Avoid starch as this can embed into the cloth and wear out your shirt pre­ma­ture­ly.

Pay atten­tion to labels on your clothes.

Nev­er have the shirt starched, which will even­tu­al­ly weak­en the fabric’s fibers, mak­ing it flim­sy. Also, avoid get­ting your dress shirts dry cleaned but laun­dered instead. Dry clean­ing requires chem­i­cals which will warp the fab­ric. Not to men­tion, dry clean­ers are noto­ri­ous for acci­den­tal­ly dam­ag­ing a lot of expen­sive cloth­ing, so try and save some mon­ey (and your clothes) by clean­ing them your­self.

Avoid the dryer in your care routine.

Unless you’re strapped for time, leave your shirts out of the dry­er. These machines actu­al­ly rob cot­ton of mois­ture which will short­en a fabric’s lifes­pan more so than any oth­er fac­tor. Not to men­tion, a good chance you’ll encounter shrink­age which may com­plete­ly alter the fit of your favorite shirt. It’s best to not take any chances.

Method 2: Washing & drying your shirts at the dry-cleaners.

A famil­iar sight; Gar­ments all wrapped up at the dry-clean­ers.

1. Pick a local dry-clean­er and have them wash and press some old­er shirts first. In this way even if they dam­age them, you won’t lose sleep over it. Find the next best clean­er or do a quick Google search for the best rat­ed ones.

2. Some­times they assume you want the shirts dry-cleaned. Make sure to ask them for a wash and press only. The actu­al chem­i­cals they use to dry-clean can be detri­men­tal to the fab­ric and may leave the shirt devoid of its orig­i­nal char­ac­ter­is­tics.

3. Iden­ti­fy tough stains to them. This is what they’re good at and they can real­ly help in remov­ing trou­ble­some spots. Be care­ful, their stain removers are high poten­cy so it’s best to seek their advice first.

A caveat to using dry-cleaners.

Clean­ers use a heavy duty indus­tri­al press, and this can some­times dam­age or even crack the shirt’s moth­er of pearl but­tons. Not only that, the deter­gent they use may not be the best espe­cial­ly since they’re using large indus­tri­al size machines for wash­ing.

Although the press­ing is fan­tas­tic, and not eas­i­ly repli­cat­ed at home, we rec­om­mend iron­ing your more del­i­cate and expen­sive shirts at home.

A typ­i­cal indus­tri­al press used by laun­dro­mats, hotels, and oth­er estab­lish­ments that see high vol­ume of gar­ment clean­ing.

Follow a proper ironing regimen for your dress shirts.

Flat­ten out all the wrin­kles before you start iron­ing as this will make it easy. Also, make sure there aren’t any stains on your dress shirt. Stains that are ironed are almost impos­si­ble to remove, becom­ing per­ma­nent­ly pressed into the fab­ric. Check to make sure there are no loose but­tons or thread­ing, as these could get caught while iron­ing and get dam­aged.

Try to iron your dress shirts when they are slight­ly damp. Using a good steam iron will help as well, as you’ll eas­i­ly and quick­ly remove wrin­kles while also dry­ing out your shirt.

Tips to handle stains on your shirts.

This is bound to hap­pen soon­er or lat­er, so it’s best to be pre­pared. Act imme­di­ate­ly when it hap­pens. If it’s mud or a grass stain, use a stain remover. Liq­uid deter­gents work well with oil or grease stains, while hand wash­ing with cold water.

White shirts are easy tar­gets so try to wear an under­shirt to coun­ter­act against sweat stains. Also, apply cologne first and let it dry before putting on your dress shirt. This will avoid any dis­col­orations from the chem­i­cals.

Prolong your dress shirt’s lifespan with simple care and attention.

Fol­low­ing these guide­lines will help you pro­long the life of your dress shirt, main­tain their col­or, fab­ric and fit. Your wardrobe is a major invest­ment and deserves the atten­tion to make it last and look good. And that extra mon­ey you save from buy­ing new shirts can be spent on some­thing else, a steak din­ner or a gift for your spouse.

Still have some unre­solved ques­tions? Shoot us an email and we can cer­tain­ly help you out!