How to Wash Your Dress Shirts After The Holiday Haze

Every year we ask ourselves the same thing after the holidays are over.

What the heck was that?

It’s like we get into a month-long, non-stop whirlwind of parties, gatherings and dinners, with family, friends and business associates, ending up with a huge blow out to ring in the New Year. 

And then suddenly the spinning stops and it’s time to head back to work. You haven’t quite finished cleaning up the house – or done the laundry. And there are no clean dress shirts in sight! 

4 Steps to Washing Your Dress Shirts

If you don’t have time to get your dress shirts dry cleaned, you can try giving them a wash at home.

1. Pretreat Stains & Darker Areas – If there is one overriding approach to take when you wash shirts on your own, it is to be gentle. That starts with staying below the “Full” line when adding laundry detergent. But you may have stubborn stains or ring around the collar and/or cuffs, and a pretreatment on those spots will help. 
2. Hand Wash in Cold Water Only – There are so many reasons for this. Among the most important are that warm water and hot water might shrink your shirt, give it a puckered look when it shrinks some stitching and not others, and may cause colours to run. Hand wash your dress shirts in cold water for good measure. 
3. Hang Them Immediately – The longer the shirts stay crumpled, the tougher your ironing job will be later on. Grab each shirt by its shoulders and give it a snap or two to get it untangled. Use a proper hanger (not one made of wire which will pucker the shoulders) to maintain the shirt’s shape and hang your shirts to air dry. 
4. Iron the Shirts – While the shirts are still wet to the touch, lightly iron them under the settings suitable for the shirt’s material. Put them back onto their hanger and place them in your closet.

Let Parkers Clean Them for You – Save time, water, detergent, and electricity by bringing your dress shirts to your local Parker’s Dry Cleaning location. If you’ve avoided the dry cleaners because you don’t have time, we’ll pick it up for free, give it a specialized dress shirt cleaning, inspect it, and return it to you just how you like it. Either carefully placed on special hangers inside a garment bag, or perfectly folded, packed and protected in its own bag.

Want to get more professional cleaning tips to do your own laundry? Check out “Our Very Best Laundry Tips”.