What’s In A Non-Iron Dress Shirt?

We are not big fans of the non-iron dress shirt, and the fol­low­ing excerpt from jour­nal­ist Daniel Akst’s piece on non iron dress shirts proves our point.

“They get that way as the result of a formalde­hyde resin bath, which makes the cel­lu­lose strands bond to one anoth­er at the mol­e­c­u­lar lev­el while chok­ing the life out of the fab­ric. Think of it as a kind of chem­i­cal castration—of the cot­ton fibers, if not the wearer…A real­ly nice one I got at my favorite store, Nord­strom, smells like the New Jer­sey Turn­pike around Exit 13, even after three wash­ings.”

Real­ly. Dress shirts are dipped in formalde­hyde to remain wrin­kle free? Just the thought of this isn’t very com­fort­ing, let alone the dis­com­fort of chem­i­cal expo­sure on skin. It is still uncer­tain if there are side effects that could emerge, but com­mon sense, to each his own, is enough to wary us. As for proven issues, dress shirts made wrin­kle free pre­vent the fab­ric from breath­ing nat­u­ral­ly, sti­fling the wear­er. Cot­ton fibers are to be soft, and not stiff to the touch.

Imag­ine, a man buys a new formalde­hyde dipped dress shirt to wear. He’s danc­ing that night and soon pro­fuse­ly sweat­ing. He unbut­tons his top and loosens his tie just to let out the steam. All the while, we won­der, what chem­i­cal air is he real­ly inhal­ing? What chem­i­cals have soaked into his skin, his chest? Just food for thought.  Don’t let your gar­ment choke the life out of ya!

Why do people buy non-iron dress shirts?

While the econ­o­my has sput­tered, these shirts have become immense­ly pop­u­lar. They don’t require a trip to the laun­dry and are gen­er­al­ly afford­able with poor­ly designed mate­ri­als. Cheap and sus­tain­able has become a ral­ly­ing point in men’s fash­ion. At the expense of chem­i­cal­ly induced dress shirts, more con­sid­er­a­tion should be giv­en to the sub­ject.

At DeoV, we hold with those who favor the nat­ur­al fibers, as men of the old­en age have favored. Style your own, make it fit and stay fresh. We guar­an­tee qual­i­ty for the body and the soul.

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