Elegant Survival

Washing and Drying Your Shirts

Photo Copyright M-J de Mesterton 2008

A well-made shirt can cost $500.00 or more. That is an investment to protect. Your shirts will last much longer if they are washed by hand and hung to dry. Don't use so much detergent that it takes a rinsing marathon to remove it. "A little dab'll do ya", as the old Brylcreem jingle said. Some people even wash their clothes successfully with no detergent at all. A little elbow grease goes a long way; agitating your clothes in water is so effective that store-bought laundry soaps are secondary to the process. See the Household Hints page for additional information on laundry soaps and boosters.

Ideally, one would hang shirts on a clothesline, upside down, with clothespins. This keeps pinch-marks off the important areas of your shirts. The sun will dry them in no time. Alternatively, one could hang them indoors, perhaps out-of-sight behind the the shower curtain, on hangers. A sturdy spring-rod, placed inside the shower area for the purpose of hanging clothes to dry will not interfere with your existing shower-rod. If you don't want to get hanger-marks on the shoulders, just put wash-cloths under them, over the ends of your hanger. The worst thing to do, even if you wash your shirts in cold water in the gentle cycle, is to dry them in a machine--doing so will quickly degrade your shirt, which will die an angry death before its time. My husband and I have shirts from France and custom-made ones from England that are twenty years old, and in perfect condition.

An electric, energy-consuming dryer is an enemy to high-quality clothing. In fact, dryers shrink clothes and wear them out quickly; lint is composed of fibers that a machine robs from your clothes. You'd be surprised at how swiftly shirts dry naturally, and when they are just a wee bit damp, they're easy to iron. In cases of stubborn collar and cuff soil, when hand-scrubbing fails, you can still wash your white shirts in hot water, soap, and a little bleach, as long as they are rinsed well, and then hung to dry. (Bleach alternative may be a better choice, if you can get it to work on stubborn stains.) The sun will do some natural bleaching of white cotton. Save costly energy and your shirts by hand-washing and sun-drying them.

Giving your precious shirts and blouses to a dry-cleaner or other laundry service is wasteful. They crush buttons and machine-dry the poor things. Do clothes hanging on a line outdoors conjure up squalid images in your mind? Too bad, because it is one of life's simple luxuries to be able to dry a beautiful, well-made shirt in the sun--some of the best people do it. Believe me, it's not remotely infradig to care for your own shirts. After all, who cares for them more than you do?

~~Copyright M-J de Mesterton, May 2008 and April 2010