There’s noth­ing more clas­sic than the but­ton down dress shirt. We all have them hang­ing in our clos­ets, ready at a moments notice. They’re used every­day in a vari­ety of sit­u­a­tions. At the office. Din­ner with a lady. Your buddy’s wed­ding. At the bar sip­ping cocktails.

They’re also an invest­ment. After tak­ing the time to find the right shirt (color, col­lar, fit, fab­ric, etc), we need to make sure it lasts longer than our last girl­friend. There’s no rea­son to dent your wal­let on a new dress shirt because it wasn’t taken care of. Here’s what you need to do.

Every­day Care — It’s impor­tant to check your dress shirts now and then to make sure there are no loose but­tons, unno­ticed stains, rips or wrin­kles. This is to catch prob­lems before it’s too late and cor­rect any­thing before you actu­ally need to wear it. This also helps prior to iron­ing. Also, keep your dress shirts spaced a few inches apart on their hang­ers, let­ting them breathe and drape nat­u­rally, pre­vent­ing poor form. So take the few min­utes to give a look over and see where any­thing may need some repair.

Wash­ing — This is the most impor­tant step to pro­long­ing the life of your dress shirt. There are two choices with wash­ing which is to do it your­self or have it taken to a clean­ing ser­vice. If you use a wash­ing machine, con­sult the tag first but it’s rec­om­mended to use a gen­tle cycle with luke­warm water. If by hand, then make sure to sep­a­rate the col­ors first and use cau­tion if you want to use bleach. White shirts should be fine but read the label­ing first for any side affects. A clean­ing ser­vice is the most pop­u­lar form of clean­ing, but also the most dan­ger­ous. They some­times use chem­i­cals that can dis­color your dress shirt or dam­age it. Never have the shirt starched, which will even­tu­ally weaken the fabric’s fibers, mak­ing it flimsy. To get that crisp look, pur­chase a dress shirt made of qual­ity with a high thread count, such as these. Also, do not get your shirt dry cleaned but laun­dered instead. Dry clean­ing requires chem­i­cals which will warp the fab­ric. Per­son­ally, I try to avoid dry clean­ers because you never know what acci­den­tal dam­age might occur but also, you save some cash clean­ing them your­self. Just don’t go above and beyond like granny does.

Iron­ing — Before flat­ten­ing out the wrin­kles, make sure there aren’t any stains on your dress shirt. Stains that are ironed are impos­si­ble to remove, becom­ing per­ma­nently pressed into the fab­ric. Also, make sure there are no loose but­tons or thread­ing. It’s best to iron when your shirt is slightly damp. Using a good steam iron, you’ll eas­ily and quickly remove wrin­kles while also dry­ing out your shirt. Here’s a guide on how to iron your dress shirt.

Stains — This is bound to hap­pen sooner or later, so it’s best to be pre­pared. Act imme­di­ately when it hap­pens. If it’s mud or a grass stain, use a stain remover. Liq­uid deter­gents work well with oil or grease stains, hand wash­ing with cold water. White shirts are easy tar­gets so try to wear an under­shirt so pit stains won’t appear from your deodor­ants. Also, apply cologne first, let it dry and then put on your dress shirt, avoid­ing any dis­col­orations from the chemicals.

So fol­low­ing these guide­lines will help you pro­long the life of your dress shirt, main­tain­ing their color, fab­ric and fit. The but­ton down is a sta­ple in any man’s wardrobe and deserves the atten­tion to make it last and look good. And that extra money you saved from buy­ing new shirts can be spent on some­thing else, like a porter­house steak or cases of my favorite beer.

Return to our home­page to learn more about cus­tom dress shirts.

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Categories: Men's Dress Shirt Guide

Tags: dress shirt care, dress shirt maintenance, dry cleaning, how to iron dress shirt, iron dress shirt, launder dress shirts, remove stains, starch, wash dress shirt