Ironing - For or Against?

http://www.taucher.net/photos/photo478/001.jpg

roxor indeed

yeah, i pretty much only iron for 'special occasions' or when the fabric is silk or satin or something i can't use downy on.

Next you'll be telling me I should be doing dry cleaning or something.

Now, I just iron shirts.

So so so unbelievably shit I hate it so much I should be drunk now

Ironing was invented by people with servants. Lots and lots of servants. Servants for scubbuing copper pots. Servants for standing behind chairs. Servants for boinking. Servants for mucking out the stalls. Servants to watch over the servants.

Ergo, I am against it. Until I get more servants.

ironing. Never could do it. Sent it out or had the housekeeper do it. Married a guy who could iron tho - he rather enjoyed it did mine and his too. Every Sunday evening he got out the iron and watched football and ironed then shined shoes. Divorced him and the only things he took were CDs clothes and the IRON AND IRONING BOARD! heh heh heh. Looking back, the housekeeper or the laundry service is less expensive and much less annoying.

You can pay people to iron for you! It is really cheap!

I can also pay people to act like my friends. Perhaps a better use of the money.

caek, just do this: don't iron

I went to Univesrity and discovered that if I folded things when they were still warm and then placed them back in the washing bag, the heat and weight worked to make them more than presentable. I thus never got into ironing, and haven't to this day. My Dad freaks at this, as he's the kind of guy who irons socks and towels for god sake.

Now, I just iron shirts.

― Dave B (daveb), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 13:03 (3 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

words to live by

if you wear dress shirts & ties to work you have to iron.

if you want to look like a bum, you don't have to iron. or shave. or wash.

Now, I just iron shirts.

― Dave B (daveb), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 13:03 (3 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

moonship - I score two out of three on the hobo checklist.

this was a little npr-ish, but good:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00g48pz/Book_of_the_Week_How_to_Get_Things_Really_Flat_Episode_2/

another link found on the right-hand column here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/progs/listenagain.shtml

ironing on a sunday morning while listening to something good is one lifes small pleasures.

[ie. i am 'busy' doing chores, but still able to check out a good album or 2]

Home steamer wand thingie as an iron alternative: For or against?

ironing on a sunday morning while listening to something good is one lifes small pleasures.

[ie. i am 'busy' doing chores, but still able to check out a good album or 2]

― mark e, Wednesday, 31 December 2008 18:34 (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

3 years on and it seems that the local mums are interested in me doing this household chore for them.

for a fee of course.

could this be the beginning of a new life for me.

sod all that software shyte and show me the creases.

I HATE IRONING SO MUCH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
― Johnney B (Johnney B)

johnney B otm

Home steamer wand thingie as an iron alternative: For or against?

― яσσʍ♭ⱥȵℹҁᔔ ᴗȵȴℹʍℹȶ∊∂ (libcrypt), Wednesday, December 31, 2008 6:57 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

FOR. I have a Rowenta garment steamer that I bought cheap on Craigslist and it's great. Ironing is such a pain in the ass, and this is easier, plus it works well on sweaters and knits that get wrinkled in our small closet but wouldn't iron easily.

I like ironing WHEN I do it, it just takes a dire emergency to get me to ever do it.

but a good Rowenta iron and a nice sturdy ironing board are the keys to ironing happiness

there is so much more in life to be angry at than being able to spend an hour or 2 in the sweet spot with the stereo on max

xxpost Mark you are IRON MAN, lol -- awesome!

i hate it. i have to wear somewhat dress-like shirts every day, and half of them are prone to extreme wrinkles. no matter how quickly i take them out of the dryer, they're completely wrinkled by the time they get upstairs. iron them the night before to save yourself some time in the morning - no, that won't work. the next morning they're somehow wrinkled again. washing clothes takes an hour or two - ironing the 7-10 wrinkled shirts that comes out takes me another 2.5 hours and also puts me in a terrible mood, no matter what kind of music i'm listening to or how drunk i am. in conclusion, I HATE IRONING SO MUCH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

i want to know more about this Rowenta garment steamer.

For the love of god, man, take those shirts to the cleaners and let them launder and iron them for you.

Fuck a garment steamer for button down shirts. That's what the cleaners is for.

After a few years without, I ordered a (super-fancy!) ironing board on Sunday. Inspired by all the linen shirts I seem to have and that it had been warm enough to consider wearing them - they hang dry okay, but nicely pressed linen is a joy.

I was checking out vintage mangles over the weekend, too. mark e, I wish you luck with your pressing.

i can't! the closest cleaners is about 9 blocks away and i don't have a car!

had no idea this was such a hated chore.

no wonder my wife sat with a grin from ear to ear as i sorted out the pile every week.

f*ck, should have cashed in those brownie points better.

rayon shirts can git tae fuck . and microfibre and all those bullshit polyesters.

ZS, have you tried taking the shirts out of the dryer when they're still partly damp? Depending on the fabric, the dampness might help ironing, and the iron will do the rest of the drying for you. If they're super-dry they can be impossible to iron no matter what you do.

i guess the alternatives are
1)asking a friend to borrow a car twice (once to bring them there, once to bring them back)
2)walking a really long way with a bunch of hangers (maybe i should just do this, but god dammit)
3)riding a bike with a bunch of hangers, circus style (might die)

Steamers won't put creases in where you want them, like the "ridgeline" crease down the arms of shirts. For getting wrinkles OUT, though, everyone seems to love them!

As someone whose laundromat has been about 8 blocks away since I moved in June, I do feel your pain. I iron at home if necessary, though.

That's cruel, ZS. Just cruel.

Well, I have this thing:

http://www.sewforless.com/products/31189.jpg

Rowenta IS8050 Commercial Grade Clothes Steamer

I think it cost about $50 on Craigslist. I went for a pro model because the consumer models are prone to breaking/not working. I've had it for at least five years now. It just stays up in a corner and I give things a steam. I do steam my own dress shirts and it works fine, although it's not going to give you that crisp result that you'd get with an iron.

ZS, have you tried taking the shirts out of the dryer when they're still partly damp?

i have, but if i do that then everything in the dryer comes out super-wrinkly. and that adds to the overall workload, since then i would have to iron even the items that would normally be at an acceptable level of low-wrinklage if they were dried for a bit longer.

why is life so haaaaard? timely thread revive, since i'm doing the ironing doing the laundry tonight and i've been dreading it all day

Is the dry cleaners on a bus line? The trick (that I learned from Jeff), is to have ten shirts that you rotate in and out of the cleaners. Then you're only going once/week to get them/drop them off.

Actually, I guess you'd need 11 shirts so you have one that you're wearing when you pick up/drop off. I think. Math's hard let's go to the mall.

I do steam my own dress shirts and it works fine, although it's not going to give you that crisp result that you'd get with an iron.

oh, i'm not looking for perfection! i'm looking for the bare minimum level of crispness necessary!

There's no crispness whatsoever (like Laurel said, you can't put a crease in a shirt with a steamer), but there are no wrinkles, and that's what matters to me.

yeah, it's the removal of wrinkles that's important to me, too. crispness is a bonus but more like a welcome accidental result than a goal.

Hang your shirts up wet, ZS. Pull all the seams straight and flatten the button plackets with your fingers. Button the top button. Leave overnight. The weight of the water in the fabric helps to pull the wrinkles out. They won't be crisp and perfect, but they are usually acceptable.

i'm skeptical that it would actually work! seriously, the worst ones usually come out looking like this:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AXy8FremNdU/TZ5ezrc638I/AAAAAAAAABo/0Rar7U6hTlE/s1600/wrinkled+shirt.jpg

Do you take your stuff out of the dryer right away?

@ mad god : 'challenge accepted'

5 minutes, and i'd have that in a far better condition.

I've just always lived close to the dry cleaners. And my shirt rotation needs to be a little larger. I think I'm at 12 now. Really should be at least 14 to 16.

ZS, this is how we have done our shirts for the past 3 years. Wash them on Permanent Press, which uses a cooldown rinse and a slower spin. It leaves a bit more water in the fabric. Put the shirt on a hanger (plastic is best), smooth it out, tug the collar into shape, straighten the seams and the plackets, gently flatten the bottom hem if it is rolled. Then just hang it up to air dry. I have a rack of stuff hanging in the basement from the weekend's laundry; will take a picture when I get home from work of the results.

I wear dress shirts constantly and after figuring out that I was spending close to $60 a month at the dry cleaners, I bought a very nice high-end Rowenta iron and a good board. Ironing now has become a perfect pseudo-zen activity and I can get everything done within an episode and a half of Maron's WTF.

I am a terrible at ironing. I'm a perfectionist, which means that ironing pants takes a half hour or more. Dry cleaning when I have the money, which isn't often. Used to get my parents to do my dry cleaning for me.

I choose to never iron; anything wrinkly I just spray down with a serious mist of 50/50 water/vodka (to get out smells, which Mythbusters says is a SURE THING, which better be true or I am teaching eighth graders while reeking of Popov). Works ok because when I get to work I am fucking covered in sweat anyway so who fucking cares anyway oh gos I'm a slob/NB I am a slovenly slob.

i've been ironing shit for years and uh practice does not always make perfect

I just don't wear clothes that require work like this. my wardrobe is all stretch tops and knit jumpers and stuff, fuk a dress shirt.

Yeah I used to think men had it easier in the work clothes dept. but the idea of what is a 'dress shirt' for women can be so nebulous that ultimately it can be an advantage.

Yup. Today I have on a plain black...well, its efectively a long sleeved tee. Over which Ive layered a twin-set style carigan, and teamed with a tweed hobble skirt. So Im not wearing a shred of needs-ironing material but I still look mad men-esqe. I'd hate to have to wear suits.

ZS, do you shake out your shirts BEFORE you put them in the dryer? if you put stuff all balled up, it will cause more wrinkles bc it stays balled up as it dries.

The other option is hanging clothes on the line! I get the impression no one in america rly does this?

yeah, that stuff is like relegated to 50s movies

i mostly just wear flannel shirts bc i hate this so much. I have a couple nicer shirts but i never wear them bc of all the wrinkles. there are a lot of annoying things about working in IT, but i have to say, being able to dress like a slob is a perk.

Love those vented poly travel shirts (eg Ex Officio, Royal Robbins, and some store brands) intended for travelers who have to do their wash in their hotel rooms. Never need ironing, are colorfast and seem to stay in good condition for years. Pick them up at 1/3 price occasionally on eBay.

Flannel is not an option as I live in a semitropical swamp.

For business attire, the 50/50 shirt has been unfairly maligned.

the shirt sprayed with my 50/50 water/vodka mix? agreed.

I'm not wearing a shred of material but I still look mad.

I iron 5 shirts for the week on Sunday evening, and then work my way through them - depending on perspiration levels endured, might wear one of these a second time at the weekend, because who cares by then? Bottom half is nearly always jeans or chinos so not much ironing needed there, although I'll run an iron over jeans if they come out of the wash with one of those irritating long creases down the leg.

Jaq, I'll def give your air drying method a go, and if that fails then Abbbottt's vodka system as Plan B.

For business attire, the 50/50 shirt has been unfairly maligned.

otm - I used to have a rolling stock of carhartt 50/50 s/s shirts when I did a more tech-focused job and they hardly ever needed ironing. Golden days.

This is an old informercial for Ironrite clothes irons.

I hope this company went bankrupt by the next year. This is nauseating on so many levels....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ll24iHp214

my cleaning lady does all my ironing, money well spent. is there a c/d thread about cleaning ladies?

I think there's a house cleaner thread.

Abbott - I use vodka/water spray (with added lavender, because I'm fancy) to spray clothes that I've worn once and want to wear again but that might need a little freshening in the pits area.

ZS, do you shake out your shirts BEFORE you put them in the dryer? if you put stuff all balled up, it will cause more wrinkles bc it stays balled up as it dries.

...yes...

...well, no I don't! I'm such a fool. Next time I will try this.

i've been ironing shit for years and uh practice does not always make perfect

it works better if you iron the shiRt

also maybe I'm doing it wrong but HOW THE HELL do you spend 2 hours ironing 10 shirts???? I don't think I've ever spent more than 5 minutes ironing a piece of clothing.

10 shirts in 2 hours is only 12 mins per shirt to be fair.

ZS, this won't help you know, but next time you buy shirts, look for "no iron" shirts or shirts with a little bit of polyester content.

Also, make sure you take stuff out of the dryer the instant it finishes.

That sounds miserable. Xposr

I might take 10 minutes to press an entire suit

and then there's the overhead of hanging up the suit afterwards. could easily add another minute here and there. and i note that the 12 minutes figure was measured while drunk.

extra overheads: wee breaks (which then involve washing and drying of hands), breaks for pausing to watch exciting bits of TV, twitter updates, drawsomething. I'm surprised anything can get done under 3 hours.

yah seriously. get a good iron and a big ironing board. 3 minutes per shirt, maybe 5 minutes if you're watching tv too. don't dry nice shirts fully. get them iron dry, which is like half dry. (or if you have space then air dry them you disgusting savage.) ironing is much much quicker with damp clothes, and the iron does the rest of the drying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK6iQj-I_0w

and don't take wee/twitter/drawsomething breaks

I used to scoff at my wife's predilection for air-drying everything until I realized it meant it cut my ironing down by 75%; now I scoff at her predilection for folding over wet clothes before hanging them so that it takes them 5 days to dry.

also if you really really hate ironing and these are just office shirts then get non-iron shirts. tm lewin do them 4 for 100 quid in the uk. they call it a sale but it's on all the time afaict. in the us brook brothers have a similar thing on non-iron, but their standard deal is apparently 3/$219, so wait for sales.

You guys are spending like 180 days of your life just ironing.

Don't even bother with Brooks Brothers unless you're a lawyer or an executive and make a lot of money. Just go to Macy's or similar and get their cheap no-iron options.

I realized when the only reason I had for wanting a Brooks Brothers shirt was so I could say "I have a Brooks Brothers shirt" that I didn't really want one.

There are ~18 dry cleaners within .5 mile from my apartment.

congrats

It's all about priorities.

go on

er dur guys why wash and iron shirts when you can just buy new ones?

i set my shirts on fire for warmth

do you know you spend 180 days of your life wiping your bottom. it's all about priorities.

just buy those disposable onesies they wear in cheese factories etc

If I find a good ass wiping outsourcing option, then I'd eliminate that task as well.

i'll do it for $4

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7102/7252666160_c6b8b3e00a.jpg

cotton, linen, and cotton batiste shirts, air-dried

The linen is obv wrinkliest, but also gets even more wrinkly with wearing so whatevs. But this is why I'm getting an ironing board after 5 years of not ironing anything. The lighter weight the material the less well it air-dries I find.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7231/7252657940_a92fa68b54.jpg

man's cotton shirt, hanging from lamp so you get a better idea

They look good to me, linen is pretty much a hopeless cause for maintaining non-wrinkledness anyway. My wash-day this weekend will include this modern air drying!

FOR. I have a Rowenta garment steamer that I bought cheap on Craigslist and it's great. Ironing is such a pain in the ass, and this is easier, plus it works well on sweaters and knits that get wrinkled in our small closet but wouldn't iron easily.

― carl agatha, Monday, May 21, 2012 5:44 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark

I remember watching small clothes shops close up for the day, and their staff would break out the garment iron and make sure all the clothes were nice and flat before leaving home for the day. if shopsellers use it, it's good enough for home!

Don't even bother with Brooks Brothers unless you're a lawyer or an executive and make a lot of money. Just go to Macy's or similar and get their cheap no-iron options.

― carl agatha, Tuesday, May 22, 2012 10:53 AM (1 month ago) Bookmark

man all the regular cut dress shirts at macy's are so baggy and loose they make me look like a balloon. I'm thrilled that most of the big manufacturers like CK and tommy and even macy's house brands are putting out 'slim-fit' and 'fitted' dress shirts now, I'm wondering if I should gorge and buy a bunch before they are no longer popular anymore.

i have a dilemma.

last week, i was ironing a new work shirt with vertical blue stripes. i didn't realize that the shirt was 60% polyester, i had the heat on way too high, and it ended up transferring some of the blue vertical stripes onto my iron without me realizing it. when i then ironed a plain white shirt, some of the blue gunk was then transferred from the iron to the white shirt. this revive is not about that shirt, which is totally ruined.

wtf do i do with this iron? i of course immediately turned it off and pretended the whole thing never happened, but now i need to iron some more clothes (FUUUUUCK IRONING btw) and the blue dye is still all over the bottom of the iron. i tried to chip at it with various household items, i tried scrubbing it with water and a towel - nothing. i suppose i could try to turn the iron on and try to scrape it off while it's hotter (and more malleable) but that sounds like a recipe for disaster.

has this ever happened to anyone? what did you do?

I took ever hint to the dry cleaners always and 4eva.

Ever hint???

Everything.

http://i46.tinypic.com/sc57xx.jpg

i want to take the iron to the dry cleaners and have them solve all my problems

i think you're supposed to turn the iron on and iron baking paper or something when this happens

rubbing alcohol? white vinegar and baking soda?

in the meantime, just lay an old towel over whatever you're ironing.

yeah google says put it on a low heat then clean with vinegar or iron absorbent paper (not newsprint obv)

Get some of this stuff. In the meantime, use a pressing cloth (that ruined white shirt - cut a big section of the back) between the iron and what you need to iron.

iron absorbent paper...hmmm...i have the terrible feeling i won't have that. or vinegar. i'm living like a minimalist when it comes to normal household objects

you'll have to momentarily sacrifice the cardboard box you use for a computer table and use that to clean the iron

ok, creativehomewares.com says: "If the substance stuck on the bottom of the iron is waxy, you should turn the iron onto its highest setting and run it across newspaper until the residue disappears."

here we go

lol dayo

(ARE YOU DAYO?!)

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/9627011/photos/Itisamystery.gif

hahahaha :)

While this is open, is there a good way to "fake iron" wool slacks? I can do my cotton or cotton-blend shirts pretty well by misting them with water and throwing them in the dryer for 10 minutes or so. But I'm a little nervous about doing that with wool. Thinking maybe hanging them up in the bathroom while I take a steamy shower or something? I don't fucking know.

start with toothpaste on a soft cloth; or make a paste out of baking soda and water, and then try rubbing that over the stains.

there's also a trick that my grandma used: take some brown paper or wax paper, folded it over, and sprinkle salt all over it. Heat your iron to the highest heat (no steam), and run the iron back and forth over the salted surface. It acts like sort of sand paper, and can sand off the marks without scratching the plate itself.

mr clean magic erasers apparently work sometimes.

I've never tried this, but you can also try spraying the plate with oven cleaner (outside, don't do it indoors if you can avoid it - and protect the rest of the iron with newspaper or clean rags). you only need to leave it on for a couple of minutes and then remove the oven cleaner with a damp rag. That *might* kill the stains if nothing else works.

newspaper may make things worse (via ink)

xpost but if you do the oven cleaner, make sure you wipe down the plate thoroughly at least a few times with several clean, damp rags. you don't want any of that caustic nastiness on your clothes.

paper, I meant, not newspaper sorry :)

While this is open, is there a good way to "fake iron" wool slacks? I can do my cotton or cotton-blend shirts pretty well by misting them with water and throwing them in the dryer for 10 minutes or so. But I'm a little nervous about doing that with wool. Thinking maybe hanging them up in the bathroom while I take a steamy shower or something? I don't fucking know.

― sorcery is in the gutter (how's life), Tuesday, October 16, 2012 8:13 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

think some people recommend ironing using a big cotton towel in between. but take that to a dry cleaners, man

Z S, is it a nice iron like a BOSCH? or a cheap piddly $10 one? it may be time to invest in a HIGH QUALITY IRON that speaks of your FINE TASTE in CRAFTSMANSHIP. it will become a RARE, HEIRLOOM IRON that you will leave to your CHILDREN.

it is a terrible, terrible iron. it is a ... let me check ... "black and decker"

it's not the B&D's fault, though, that this happened. i got overzealous and turned up the heat way too high because i wanted to take a shortcut. "never take a shortcut, son - always follow the righteous path" - my dad, at a point. i am so sorry dad

"don't try to carry it all up the stairs at the same time! just take two trips!" - also my dad. i am so sorry dad

update: i ironed the newspaper at extreme heat. the iron is the same but the crossword is very flat

http://www.amazon.com/Rowenta-DG5030-Station-Stainless-Soleplate/dp/B000MT519O/

isn't it time for you to treat yourself?

god i hate ironing

it is the worst

http://www.amazon.com/Reliable-J490A-IronMaven-Ironing-Anti-Calc/dp/B000OZPQUA/

you've worked hard - you deserve it. only the best for #1.

i love sewing, though, and now i want to sew everything

Reliable J490A IronMaven Home Ironing System with CSS and Anti-Calc Warning System

finally, a reliable ironing system with CSS AND and anti-calc warning system

i've only been able to find unreliable systems with CSS and the anti-calc, or reliable systems with just the CSS or just the anti-calc, but now i can have a reliable home ironing system with CSS AND anti-calc!

what the hell was wrong with me the day i decided to bookmark this thread, i wonder

hahahahaah

im pretty into ironing but no way am i bookmarking this

Ironing is not actually the worst but it rly rly helps to have board & iron conveniently stored somewhere near a television because imo the only possible thing to do while ironing is watch movies that are all dialogue.

see i think i'd appreciate ironing more if i owned an iron or ironing board---as it is now, it's something that happens to me in hotel rooms, usually 20min before i have a meeting or something and oh god how the fuck does any of this ~work~ *googles 'how to iron shirt'*

It's not fun, don't get me wrong. But it doesn't have to be a hellish altar on which you sacrifice perfectly good shirts.

In a different life, I used to own an iron and ironing board. I ironed my working clothes regularly. I was never any good at it thought, despite having read several instructional articles and websites.

There were days when I missed an area. There were uneven creases. There was calcium build-up. There was much burning.

Always my most despised household chore, for all the usual reasons. (Couldn't get creases or collars right, and frequently burned myself.) Plus I hate that scorching-metal smell. I haven't ironed since '99 and never will again. Let the cleaners do it when necessary.

I saved a lot of money this summer by washing and ironing my own dress shirts

but it is very time consuming in the future I will bring my shirts to a cleaner

Ironing seems to be based on the topological impossibility that an asymmetrical 3d object can compress to a flat surface

beating the creases out of a plain t-shirt (which would probably not need ironing anyway) is just about OK, but once there are frills and ruching and buttons and darts and seams and... no

plus my iron hates me and likes to do things like suddenly deposit large quantities of limescaley water down the front of the coloured shirt I should have left the flat wearing five minutes ago, or trip the fuses for half the flat including the freezer, etc