How do I Iron a man's dress shirt to look like it came from the cleaners?

Question

Cuz i don't wanna be spending $5 a week on shirts, but they look so much better, and it takes a long time the way I do them now.

Answer 1

I was in the Marines and I iron all my shirts. So trust me when I say I speak from nothing but experience....

If you want your sleeves to have razor sharp creases, here is the first thing you'll wanna do. Get some spray on starch, it usually costs about 2$ to 3$ for a can. Then, spray it on your sleeves where the crease goes. Try knocking out a bunch of shirts at once, its a time saver. After the starch has sorta dried, slightly damp, like 5 minutes later, begin by ironing the sleeves.

Start with laying out one sleeve flat, bisecting the sleeve along the seam on the under side so as to fold the sleeve in half lengthwise. With your iron on HIGH with water in it for producing steam, start by ironing the crease flat from the shoulder towards the cuff. Keep the sleeve somwhat taught and flat so you dont get any wrinkles or unwanted creases, or worse yet, double creases from the last time you ironed. We used to call them "Railroad Tracks".

So once you have ironed both sleeves first, iron the collar out flat. Dont fold the collar, like how you woudl wear it, lay it out totally flat and just iront it out. Spray a little bit of water on it if it is wrinkled at all.

Then iron the left front side of the shirt and work your way around to the sides, back and finally the right, paying close attention to the wrinkles. If you got alot, a spritz of water helps. And thats about it. Should take you about 3 or 4 minutes per shirt, plan on your first time taking you a bit longer since after all it is your first.

Also one thing to consider when you buy dress shirts, look at the tag. 100% Cotton to me generally means lots of ironing, 50/50 polyester / cotton means less ironing. I just recommend staying away from Rayon only cause I hate ironing it, it wrinkles way too easily after you have it on.

Oh yeah, when I do mine, I usually am watching TV. In an hour or 2 I usually knock out all of my trousers and dress shirts.

Best of luck....

Answer 2

It would depend on how and where she wears the men's shirt. If she wears it casually at the beach as a bathing suit cover-up, or as a top shirt over a tank top with women's pants around the house, at the park, or to the store it's ok. If she wears the same shirt buttoned up as a dress shirt like a man would wear it, it would not look as good.

Answer 3

Yeah, Jeff....been doing it like that since I was a kid. I ironed my brother's Navy uniforms. My dad's second job was a bartender and he wore white 100% cotton shirts and he wanted them perfect...you'd think HE was in the military. It takes time and practice ,Chris ( a few scorched shirts later...lol) but you can do it!!