Ironing - For or Against?

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"