How to Wash & Clean Cotton Mens Dress Shirts - Male Clothing _ Style Advice _ Fashion Tips
Hi.
My name is Antonio Centeno.
Iím the founder of Real Men Real Style.
Today, I'm going to be talking about how to take care of your cotton shirt.
If you havenít yet, make sure to subscribe our YouTube channel and these videos will
come right to your inbox.
In addition, if you enjoy this video, please like I below.
It makes me feel better and it actually lets us know what videos people really like, which
ones they donít so much and it allows us to make more videos that you do like.
So, weíll be able to give you a better content.
Okay.
Iím going to jump right to the question.
And this has to do with cotton dress shirts because the gentlemen asks no matter how good
the quality of the material is, any shirt will have some wear and tear after several
wash cycles.
And the same goes for any machine washable clothing.
How do you deal with this?
Many the materials that youíre talking about is so high and it doesnít noticeably deteriorate
over the years.
But it had yet defined something like this.
Okay.
The gentlemen is referring to probably an earlier video in which I talk about buying
quality dress shirts and how those are going to continue to look good overtime.
Now, if you watch my video, youíll notice, actually, I wear ñ thereís a few dress shirts
which I keep here in the studio, which I always throw one and wear in most of my videos.
These are some of my favorite dress shirts.
And I have literally had these things for ñ well, this dress shirt I have for six years,
and it still looks great.
Now, there are steps I go to to make sure that it still looks great after six years.
But I can tell you in a six-year period, I probably worn this dress shirt a hundred times;
if not, more.
And so, youíre probably asking, ìOkay, Antonio, if youíve got a hundred wears, if not, more
out of this dress shirt, how do you keep it in shape?î Well, first off, you do need to
buy quality.
And the reason you want to buy quality is because simply itís going to hold at better.
Itís the difference between buying and, you know, there are ñ you know, Ford is a great
company but there is a difference between Ford quality and BMW quality.
Ford makes automobiles.
BMW ñ well, their trucks are pretty good.
But their cars, well, you know, there are acronyms for what ñ Iím guess Iím a Chevy
man, so I can ñ Chevy truck so I can ñ silver auto in particular.
But in any case, I donít want to vouch for it, but I will say that BMW makes amazing
driving machines.
Notice I didnít say ñ I mean, theyíre big about, ìHey, these are driving machines aimed
towards perfection.î I see people driving, you know, 25, 30-year old BMWs and those things
are still holding up wonderfully.
They look beautiful.
I mean, it was a big difference in quality here, from the parts to the craftsmanship,
to every little part.
And the same goes in the quality shirt, thatís hand-sewn, thatís individually stitched.
All of those details, youíve got to pay attention to and youíll notice.
So, make sure you go with quality, materials of quality shirt.
The other thing is wash it less, this sounds simple but just because you wear a shirt for
an hour or you wear it for a couple of hours doesnít mean itís dirty and it doesnít
mean you have to throw it in the hamper.
So, look at the shirt.
Unless itís dirty, donít wash it so you can oftentimes wear a shirt.
And letís say youíre only going to wear it for a few hours, wear it for a few hours
here, a few hours there.
Well, you make a three or four small wears out of it, you know.
And Iím not saying if youíre going to be wearing this thing for 12 or 16 hours, sweating
in it riding in an airplane, you know, friends or people around you are smoking, of course,
youíre going to want to wash this shirt.
Itís not all the time that we put a shirt through a full dayís wear.
So if you donít do that, look at the shirt, hang it up and let it air out and then wear
it again.
Usually where a shirt gets dirty is going to be around the cuff and on the inside of
the collar.
Those are the areas where they most often get dirty and where you need to pay attention
and then ñ so this leads to the second part, youíre not washing it often.
And when you do wash it, youíre going to pay attention to where itís dirty and really
concentrate your cleaning efforts there.
Maybe have some spray, cleaners, some stain remover.
Use less detergent and use, you know, if you canít hand wash the shirt.
Now, I say hand washing I know most of you are not going to do it.
So when you wash it in the machine, wash it on gentle.
You donít have to run that thing through permanent press.
And if youíve got a newer machine, especially when itís front loading, itís going to be
a lot gentler on it than if you put it into one thatís got ñ uses that, I donít know,
I forgot what itís called, that big tumbler thing that twists and uses a little bit of,
you know, physical force on it.
You ñ the less ñ the gentler you can be with the shirt in the machine washing process,
the longer itís going to last.
And it would sound obvious, but most of us donít think about it because weíve already
got a system in place or weíre lazy.
The last part is drying the shirt.
Let it hang dry.
Let it ñ put it out to dry.
If youíre going to use the hanger, use a plastic hanger or use something thatís got
a little bit of support.
Donít use wire hangers or just lay it out and let it dry.
What you donít want to do is put it into a dryer and leave it there for 50 or 60 minutes.
And youíre going to end up pulling all the moisture out of it.
And you know that lens in the dryer, where do you think that comes from- itís pulled
from the shirt?
So, dryers, especially if you leave the clothing in there for a prolonged period.
Theyíre doing nothing but really destroying the clothing.
Theyíre going to cost it to also.
That extreme hit causes the cotton fibers to change shape and, you know ñ thatís maybe
good if you need the shirt quickly and you want to throw it in the dryer just to get
rid of some of the wrinkles, go for it.
But a better option would be to give yourself a little bit more time, pull it out when tís
moist and iron it while itís moist.
Now, some of this may require change your habits, but those are the best options in
my opinion to make sure your cotton dry shirt last longer.
Okay.
This has been Antonio Centeno with Real Men Real Style.
If you would like to learn more about men style and fashion, and stuff like that, make
sure to visit our website.
Weíve got a free 47 page eBook, which I think youíll enjoy.
And thatís it.
Bye-bye.