How to take care of your dress shirts

Bring them to the dry cleaners
Every one of us is so busy with our daily lives, we wanted more time with our loved ones, best method of washing will be to send them to the professional. Maids are not reliable, they never listen to instructions (but good news for me, they destroy more shirts, I’ll get more business). The drycleaners will pick up the laundry, launder and iron the shirts at roughly SGD$4 per shirt, send them back in 3 days. Fuss free and easy. High quality shirts will be able to maintain the shape and colour for a long time if you take good care of them. Choose a reliable dry cleaner and stick to them. Some dry cleaners might be too rough with the shirts, shatter the shell buttons, stretch the sleeves length from hard pressing, material turn shiny etc. Read the reviews and choose wisely.

Hand wash the shirts at home

The term hand wash will scare most men who doesn’t do household chores. I really like this method, but it requires time and effort. Whites and blacks need to be wash separately and you have to iron them after that but you’ll have more control of when the laundry will be “back” in your wardrobe. Do these if you have time to spare and so love your shirts:

• Unbutton everything, including the cuffs and sleeve plackets, remove collar stays and anything in the pocket if any.
• Look out for stains (collars, cuffs, laksa, curry, chilli) work some detergent/stain remover pen on those spots before washing
• Get a pail of cold water, stir some detergent into water, wash all the whites together, becareful of the detergent that you use. Some come with blue powder mixed inside, might cause your white shirts to turn blue slightly (you know what I mean)
• Gently rub the collars and cuffs together with your hands and leave to soak for a while
• Rinse with clean water twice to make sure that you remove all the detergent.
• Ringed it and hang dry at 90% dry, iron the shirts.

Ta-da, Completed!

Machine wash

First few steps will be the same as above.

Once you’ve prepared the shirts to be wash, put the shirt into a netted laundry bag. One shirt in a bag, no sharing as the spinning will cause the sleeves to pull together.
Delicate cycle and cold water please
Once the washing is done, promptly hang the shirts to air dry as the creases from spinning dry will be hard to straighten out if left in the washer overnight.
At 90% dry, iron the shirts.

Dryers allowed?

I’ll never put my shirts in the dryer, firstly, shirts wear out a lot faster in the dryer. Secondly, most of us wear 100% cotton nowadays, it’s breathable, comfortable but dryer will shrink the shirt with the heat. So please air dry your shirts if you wish to prolong the life span of your shirts. If not you’ll see me a lot more often than you’d like.

Tips on caring for your shirts:

• Do not leave the stain on the shirts for a long time, especially whites.
• Wash it as soon as you get the chance so as to avoid the stain from settling into the fabric and become a stubborn stain.
• Always remove the collar stays, do not depend on your dry cleaners. Washing will cause the collar stay to warp and curve awkwardly.
• Point out the stains on the shirts to the dry cleaners so they can pay attention to that area and make sure you have clean shirts everyday.
• Can you bleach white shirts? Yes, use a soft bleach once in a while to “whiten” the shirts.
• Use Lux soap to remove pen stains. However if your pen leak a whole lot of ink then no methods will be able to help. Shirt can R.I.P and time to get new ones.