Ironing - For or Against?

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.