Wrinkle-free: Ironing the Easy Way
Submitted by SharpMan Editorial Team on Monday 11th October 2010- Avoid ironing when you do laundry.
- Affording a dry cleaner.
- The SharpMan guide to no-fail ironing.
Do you avoid wearing stuff that requires ironing? Does this result in perfectly good shirts going unworn? Is this because you hate to iron or because you haven’t got a clue how to do it? Either way, read on for no- and low-ironing tips to help you avoid ironing without having to resort to an all-polyester wardrobe:
Avoid Ironing When You Do Laundry
Proper laundering can make a big difference in how your clothes look and wear. Let’s start from the beginning.:
Step One. Always use a high-quality laundry detergent. The better stuff is less likely to cause fabric deterioration, so your clothing’s fabric will retain its thickness and strength. Why do you care about fabric strength? Because thicker, stronger fabric is less likely to wrinkle.
Step Two. Always use a fabric softener. It relaxes the fabric so that it "hangs" better when you wear it. Also, when relaxed fabric does wrinkle, it is less likely to "hold" the wrinkle.
SharpMan Tip: Some brands also produce something called "wrinkle-reducing" fabric softener. While this product sounds good, the SharpMan Team testers found that it coats fabric, making clothing feel heavier and look dingy. If you are so anti-ironing that dingy, sticky clothing is your preferred alternative, make a point of using higher-end wrinkle-reducing fabric softener. In our testing, the better brands out-performed the cheapos by leaving our SharpThreads looking less grimy.
Step Three. Hang or fold your duds as soon as they come out of the dryer! The heat from the dryer should warp wrinkles out of your clothes, but, once out of the dryer, the lingering heat makes them more prone to wrinkle if you toss them in a laundry sack or basket along with everything else you own.
SharpMan Tip: If you find that you still have wrinkles in whatever it is you want to wear, take a hot shower. Really. While you scrub-a-dub-dub, keep the bathroom door closed and hang your wrinkled garment close to the accumulating steam (but out of the spray). With most natural fibers, the steam from your shower and weight from being on a hanger will smooth out the majority of the wrinkles.
Affording the Dry Cleaner
Because simply laundering right won’t keep all garments wrinkle-free, consider enlisting the help of a local dry cleaner. Unfortunately, the problem with dry cleaning is that’s it’s not really cost effective to the extent you plan to clean your clothes every time you wear them. Not only is the cleaning more expensive, but the cleaning process causes fabric wear. Add that to the time-value of your trips to and from the cleaners, and you’ve got a pretty serious bill.
Try these tips to reduce your trips to the dry cleaner:
Wear undergarments. By reducing the amount of contact between your body and your clothes, you’ll increase the number of times you can wear the article without having it cleaned.
Take it off when you get home. When you get back from a hard day at the office, immediately take off your clothes and hang them up in the open so they can air out. When you want to put them on again, you should only have to iron at the elbows, knees and waistline.
SharpMan Tip: Note that re-wearing clothing worn to a bar or restaurant may be hard to pull off. The smell of smoke and food (especially greasy food) is impossible remove without some form of laundering or cleaning.
Use coupons. Most dry cleaners offer specials. For example, some cleaners give you a price break when you bring in five pieces or more, which may make less frequent trips more economical overall. Dry cleaner specials are often posted in their front windows, but may also be found on the back of local supermarket receipts, in newspapers or in coupon circulars that come in the mail.
It’s also a good idea to do some price shopping, as dry cleaners’ prices tend to vary tremendously. In fact, by simply walking or driving an extra block you could save you as much as $10-15 per trip. But be careful. Dry cleaners of ill repute should be avoided no matter what the savings. Your clothes could come back with stains, rips, missing buttons, or not come back at all. For more information on choosing a dry cleaner, check out SharpMan’s Dry Cleaning Tips.
Buy more clothing. Use the old "underwear" theory here. The more of it you have, the less often you have to wash it. While this may mean that every one of your work shirts is not a designer original, you’ll nonetheless appreciate less frequent laundering and dry cleaning needs. Don’t have enough underwear? Check out Men’s Underwear 101: A Brief Review of Boxers, Bikinis, Etc.
No-fail Ironing
Despite all of our laundry and dry cleaning tips, the fact is that sometime, somewhere, you’ll end up in a situation that requires you to iron. Relax. Check out these no-fail SharpMan tips for getting the ironing job done:
Step One: Your first move is to get yourself a good, hard surface on which to iron. An ironing board is ideal. If you don’t have one of those, choose a hard surface that is not heat-sensitive (i.e., that nice wood table in the dining room is a bad choice) and spread a blanket or towel (without seams) over it.
Step Two: Now get yourself some spray starch — a miracle in a can for good and bad ironers alike. A good, heavy spray starch can make your ironing look twice as nice, while taking half as long.
Step Three: Pick up your first article of clothing and look at its tag to determine the type of fabric that its made of. Based on what you read, choose the iron setting with the same name (for example, if your shirt says "cotton" or mostly cotton, set your iron to the word "cotton" — this ain’t brain surgery, after all).
Step Four: Lay the item down flat on the ironing board, hold the spray can at least a foot above the garment and spray the first area you’ll iron lightly. Put down the spray, pick up your iron and lightly pass over the garment with the iron. Don’t hold the iron down on any one spot for more than a few seconds or stuff will begin to burn.
For the where and how specifics, follow these guidelines:
For shirts: Start with the collar, sleeve cuffs, sleeves, then button plaque. Move on to one of the front halves and work your way around to the other front half. When you’re done, hang the shirt immediately. For the beginner: you might have problems with the bottoms of the sleeves. If it’s a hot day, no problem; roll them up. If it’s chilly, put on a jacket.
For pants: Start with the waistband. Move on to the cuffs. Next, iron out all the wrinkles in the legs. Beginners should avoid buying pants with pleats. For the more experienced, to make a pleat, line up the seams of one pant leg. The fold should fall where the crease should be. Spray generously with starch and iron that crease into the pant leg. Repeat with the other leg. Hang immediately when finished.
As you get better, these ironing techniques will go from your "emergency" regiment to a more frequently used cost-saving skill worth having.
No-Duh Ironing Rules:
- The iron is hot. Don’t touch it with any part of your body. As elementary as this may seem, you’re bound to burn yourself at first — so make it a harmless burn.
- Don’t iron in front of the television. You won’t be able to concentrate and will likely end up burning that last clean shirt.
- Never leave an iron on if you plan to walk away from it — ever. Irons can easily tip over and start a fire.
- If you have pets, it may be a good idea to get them out of the room when you iron. Curious cats and dogs tend to play with iron electrical cords. Oops.