You never get a second chance to make an excellent first impression. A fresh, laundered, and the well-pressed shirt is essential.
We successfully launder hundreds of shirts every day. And we are very good at it. But, like all things, shirts can outlive their useful life or exhibit other problems. Whether your shirts are store-bought, custom-made, expensive, or inexpensive, the issues below identify and explain those we encounter from time to time.
“I can’t wear my favorite shirt anymore.” The Drycleaning & Laundry Institute tells us that the average life expectancy of a shirt is about 35–50 washes or roughly two years. But even this will fluctuate depending on the amount of abrasion and strain placed on the shirt during wear, the fiber content, and how the shirt is constructed. Sometimes they simply wear out.
“Do you really have a person whose only job is to crack buttons?” No. But we quickly check every shirt for cracked or missing buttons and replace them before returning to you. Do we sometimes miss a button? Yes. But should this happen, you need only point it out, and we will immediately take care of it.
“It’s a brand new shirt, and the color has run all over it! You must have washed it wrong.” The Federal Trade Commission’s Care Labeling Rule states that all components in a garment must withstand the recommended care procedures. If one or more dyes in a multi-colored shirt are not colorfast, bleeding will occur whether you wash it at home or we launder it for you. Significant dye failure is attributable to poor manufacturing and should be returned to the retailer.
“The collar and cuffs are full of wrinkles!” Puckering and excess fabric in the collar and cuffs is often the result of the interfacing shrinking, leaving an overabundance of the outer material. We can’t reverse this circumstan