As always I like to speak to matters that are near and dear to my heart. There is something about a crisply pressed dress shirt, straight from the cleaners that just makes an outfit pop. Few things can complete a wardrobe like a shirt that stands at attention.
I realized a few weeks ago, that even though I prided myself on “pinching” a few pennies by waiting for the Tuesday special at my dry cleaners, I was still spending way too much to have shirts “dry-cleaned” when I could do them myself. I say “dry-cleaned” because the correct term should be laundered. If you have ever asked for heavy, medium, or light starched shirts, your Friday’s Finest were laundered not dry-cleaned. That being said, I figured that I would give it a go by laundering and hand-pressing my dress shirts.
If you read the labels of even the most high-quality shirts most give laundering/pressing instructions and rarely say dry clean only. So go ahead and take a few shirts and toss them into the laundry on regular cycle in WARM, yes WARM, water. The warm water temperature will ensure that you get all of that work week grime out of your shirts. After they spin dry, toss them into your tumble dryer (or stationary dryer for those washing wizards) and dry on low.
Here is where the essentials begin. The tools to use are a stainless-steel bottomed steam iron and a can of regular or heavy starch. I am going to assume that we have all ironed shirts before so the only real tip is that as you spray starch your shirts allow the starch to penetrate the material completely before you iron. This will ensure that you aren’t left with the white flaking that can occur if you spray starch and then heavy iron too quickly.
On average I would say that it took, at most, 15 minutes per shirt. Just like well polished shoes, a well pressed shirt says a lot about a man. I would say at least give it a try. If it doesn’t work out you can always wait on the next Tuesday special at your dry cleaners.
Fashionably Yours,
Mason
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