How To Care Men’s Dress Shirts (And Prolong Their Life)?
With the right care, a high quality dress shirt can last for several years. Top quality dress shirt is an essential closet stable and help to create your professional image, and let everyone know you mean business. Caring for your dress shirts is just as important as choosing one that suits you.
Our cleaning experts at My Locker Laundry love to share with you how you could maintain your dress shirts neat and professional at home so that you’ll continue looking good both in and out of your office.
Cleaning at home
1. Preparation: Before you wash your shirt, undo all the buttons, including the button cuffs, and remove the collar stiffeners, if any.
2. Pre-treat stains: Pre-treat any stains (e.g. food, ink, sweat) with a stain remover. You can get a good quality stain fighter pen at cold storage for about $6 to $7. Let the formula soak in the fabric for about 15 minutes before you continue cleaning.
3. Don’t use bleach on your shirt! Using bleach on your shirt will damage the fabric and causing undesirable results on your garments. Our studies found that you should NEVER use bleach for wool, silk, mohair, leather and spandex (those elastic synthetic fibre clothes). If you really want to use bleach, use a small amount and only use it at the affected areas, but NOT soak your entire shirt inside!
4. Wash: Wash your dress shirts in cold water using the delicate cycle on your washing machine. High temperature will cause shrinkage on your shirts and a lower temperature will help the shirt’s fabric retain its colour for a longer time. ALWAYS separate white and dark colours when washing your clothes.
If you are dealing with oil-based stains, you may want to consider using a professional dry cleaners instead of fighting them at home, as the solvent used by professional dry cleaners (like our professional team at My Locker Laundry) is a lot more effective than water-based solution when it comes to removing stubborn stains. Ready to try out our services? Click here!
5. Drying: The shirts will be crumpled in the washing machine so you’ll want to remove them promptly after the washing cycle before these intense wrinkles dry into the shirt. Button up the top two buttons on your dress shirts to help your shirts to remain its shape when you are hanging them to air dry them. Be careful about hanging the shirts on a sharp hanger or with tight clothespins as this can distort the fabric or leave a permanent mark on the shirt. For hangers, we recommend the wooden hangers instead of wire hangers, as a wooden hanger frame reduces the stress on the fabric and prolonging their lifetime.
6. Next you will want to iron your shirts. Remember to check the shirt’s label for its fabric content so you can select the most appropriate heat setting on your iron. In general, cotton shirts or cotton-blend shirts can typically withstand higher heat than ones made of synthetic fibres such as polyester. For synthetic fibres, you need a lower temperature. Contrary to some mainstream thoughts, for best results, shirts should be slightly moist instead of perfectly dry when you are ironing them.
By now, you will realize that to properly care your shirts require effort and time. Indeed, keeping your white shirt white and colored shirt freshed is never easy, but it definitely worth your effort. After all, a cleaned and neatly pressed shirt provides you with a good image in front of others. Invest your time!
(Well, if you want to look good but can't afford time to properly take care of your shirts, try our services. Our dry clean and wash and iron services for a men shirt is only S$4.50 - one of the lowest price in town! Check it out here!)