Mens Dress Shirt Care Tips

One of the biggest fashion Faux Pas in office attire is wearing wrinkled dress shirts. Even worse: Collar and cuffs are worn out, bend out of shape, and might even have some sweat or deodorant stains. To make sure that this doesn't happen to you below are a few tips that will help you protect your expensive dress shirts. Knowing how to care for them will not only make you look more competent, but will also save you some money in the long run.

Extend The Life of Your Shirts:
Before wearing your brand new dress shirt, make sure you wash it first to remove any toxic, skin-irritating chemical. Besides giving your skin a break, washing will soften teh fabric.

Over time buttons might come loose. To avoid having to run around with a half-buttoned dress shirt, routinely check for unsecured buttons or loose threads.

Machines wash your dress shirts on a gentle cycle with lukewarm water to preserve fabric and colors. Ideally dress shirts are not to be dry cleaned. The chemicals used in dry cleaning fluids may destroy the fabric and even render a crisp white into a dirty yellow. Just tell your cleaner that you would like your shirts to be laundered and then ironed.

While starching makes a shirt stiffer and crisper, starch can weaken fabric over time. The best advice is to use lighter starch. Also only use starch every other time you get the shirts laundered. Best of all is to use cotton dress shirts that have a higher thread count. This will give the shirts a crisp look without needing any starch.

Avoid antiperspirant stains. To do so, wait for deodorant to dry first before putting on your dress shirt. Also helpful in preventing stains is to rinse any stain off with cold water right away. This will prevent that the stain sets into the fibers. once this happens it is much harder to remove the stain and a shirt might be ruined.

To prevent color fading separate your shirts into three different categories before washing them: Whites, Coulors, and Darks (black, gray, dark blue). Only use bleach for white dress shirts and only use it lightly. Bleach is a harsh chemical that breaks down natural fibers, like cotton, over time. Only use bleach when absolutely necessary.

Tips for ironing your dress shirts:
It is best to iron dress shirts while they are still a little damp. This will make it much easier to remove wrinkles. In addition it will keep fibers cooler and will avoid possible burning stains.

When ironing make sure to use a clean ironing board. Never use a wooden table! If you don't have an ironing board, then only use a wooden dinner table with at least 3 layers of clean white cotton towels in between table surface and dress shirt.

Hanging your shirts:
Hanging your dress shirt will prevent wrinkles. In addition it will make it much easier to find a shirt that matches your suit and necktie. Use hangers with a wider shoulder area. Wire hangers should be avoided as the pointy tips can cause permanent damage in the fabric.