Laundering shirts at home can be good way for men who a) do not employ a laundress and b) are willing to learn how to iron to occupy themselves during spectator sports. Shirts come out brighter and wrinkle free, and careful laundering can double the life of a shirt (of course, the principal challenge with this kind of activity is that maintaining both shirts and shoes at home can take up a good part of a day each week and probably borders on obsessiveness).
I learned my shirt laundering echnique from a master, Alex Kabbaz, and there is no reason to duplicate work that can be found on his site. No, the only thing I can add is that home launderers should consider a steam station style iron like the Rowenta Steam Station DG5030 in the photo (about $175). A steam station's high volume of, you guessed it, steam takes the creases out of shirts faster and easier than any dry iron. At less than ten minutes apiece (as little as five with experience), laundering shirts at home is far more practical than you might think. And if you are one of those fortunate men who have found a launderess to employ, s/he will do better work with the right tools.
Posts
8 comments:
I'm one of those obsessive home launderers! A cheaper alternative is to use a spray bottle and dry iron. The iron will probably last longer, too as the complicated ones seem to be unreliable (I have 3 dead ones so far), and it's cheaper to replace a cheap iron, should that die.
Anyway, the goal of the steam is to distribute heat to the insides of the fabric. Ironing dry, you are relying on air to carry heat into the fibers, and air is not a great heat conductor. Water is a much better conductor of heat, which is why it's so much easier to smooth out wrinkles with steam or wetting the fabric with a bit of water, which the iron turns into steam.
Even better, I iron my shirts damp out of a front-loading washer, whose high-speed spin cycle leaves shirts damp, but not dripping wet. Using just a dry iron, I can get most of the shirt smooth, and I only have to use the spray bottle for a few spots (mostly to fix mistakes, like when you iron the cloth with a wrinkle or fold in it).
You bring up a good point. More men would prefer to clean, condition and polish their shoes themselves than launder and press shirts. It may not make economic sense.
It's probably best to use a good steam iron for ironing shirts at home to prevent accidental scorch marks. Irons without a separate reservoir an be brilliant (I have one) but if the last bit of water has just been used from the integrated reservoir and you hold the dry heat too long on a shirt, you might scorch it.
The method Andre talked about of ironing while damp is a good method, but if you don't feel like ironing them all after the laundry and just want to iron one ready for the next day, spraying a shirt, letting it sit in a plastic bag for 30 minutes, then ironing works a treat.
The separate reservoir irons take the worry out of running out of steam. Mine is a De Longhi and it could probably iron all 60 of my shirts without running dry.
What about an iron press? Not for the ironing conossieur?
It is both therapeutic and satisfying to iron one's own shirts while watching sports on TV. Nothing obsessive or dare I say 'un-manly' about it.
I have a question regarding the laundry process according to that article. Because I do sweat a bit during the days, and I've tried everything, but if I don't wash my shirts at 60 degrees celcius they will start smelling after 1-2hours of usage. After all bacteria dies at 57C so how do you solve this issue? I can't be the only one?
Will,
While I am fully cognizant of the fact that Lands' End is hardly in your league, I thought you might like to share this essay from the 1980s with your readers. It used to be on their website, but has been unavailable for a long time.
THE PLEASURE OF IRONING A FINE COTTON SHIRT
by Roy Earnshaw
My wife is still asleep. I've exercised (quietly), showered, eaten breakfast. Now comes time for a familiar early morning ritual.
I take a cotton dress shirt from the closet, a wrinkled cotton dress shirt, shrug it off its hanger, and drape it over the ironing board.
Some men might smirk at the sight of me preparing to iron. "What? You iron your own shirts? John Wayne never would've!"
Well, call me a pantywaist, but I happen to enjoy it.
I plug in the iron, check the water level, turn the setting to — what else — cotton. Then pause for a few moments to let it get hot.
The room where I iron is a barren one. No furniture, just the ironing board. A "room we haven't figured out what to do with yet," having just recently bought this house. I suppose one day it will fill up with things, but right now I like it this way. Its spartan aspect seems well suited to the art of ironing.
I start with the left sleeve, first spritzing on water with a sprayer, then ironing it so flat, it almost looks as if I could pick it up and slice bread with it.
I turn it over, do the other side, then the cuff. Then on to the other sleeve, while the ironed one dangles just above the dusty wood floor.
(My wife tells me my technique is all wrong, but then so did my golf coach, my typing teacher, other authority figures. I take a perverse pleasure in doing things my own incorrect way.)
Now the back yoke, and a couple swipes at the collar. The easy parts. And then I sweep the shirt up off the board and down again, with its back spread out flat before me.
Sometimes I botch the back pleat, and have to do it two or three times. But no one is watching.
The ironing board cover bothers me. It's a cheap one, full of childish flowers in jarring hues. Orange. Chartreuse. Purple. The colors of fast food restaurants. I miss the plain white one my mother used to have, with its humble dignity and burn smudges.
I press on. (No letters please — bad puns harm no one.) The cotton cloth is soft, sturdy in my fingers, and responsive to the iron. I swear, it enjoys being ironed! Almost seems to purr. It has a wonderful, tightly-woven texture to it, and glistens with the heat of the iron, and the soft light of the room.
Again I sweep the shirt up off the board, and down again, to do the right front, skating in and out around the buttons, then the left, using plenty of water and going over the stubborn placket again and again, bearing down, until it finally yields and becomes flat, neat. I am finished.
Now, the final pleasure of slipping into the toasty shirt. Especially keen now, in the February cool of the house. It almost crackles as I button it up, tuck it in.
The finches in the back room start to peep as first light looks in the windows. Time for me to go. But I leave with a sense of contentment, knowing that whatever large debacles or small frustrations await me, I have at least done one small piece of good work today.
I purchased a refurbished pressurized Delonghi steam iron, this may have been the purchase of my life. I top the iron with a TOP HAT coated sole plate. I now can Iron everything from silk to heavy wool outwear, all on the highest settings for tempature and steam, not wrickle is safe. Add benefit the steam removes some stains
Post a Comment