You might have certain pieces of cotton shirts that you favour from your wardrobe. Wouldn’t it be great if you can don these shirts for quite a while if not forever? Okay, we might have gone overboard with “forever” but you get the idea.
With the current climate being an uncertain factor and your busy lifestyle that leads you to wash and dry them incorrectly, your cotton shirts might be doomed to shorter shelf life. This is upsetting news considering that you might have been financially and emotionally invested in these clothes.
With that said, what are the ways you can implement to make your cotton shirts last longer?
Organize Your Laundry
The first order of business when it comes to ensuring a longer shelf life for your clothes is to sort them properly. Keep in mind that certain clothes are only suitable for certain wash cycles. For example, your delicate dresses or blouses might not be cut out for the quick wash option as the cycle speed might damage the clothes.
The same can be said about your gym clothes in the hand wash cycle too. Your gym clothes might not be properly cleaned due to the wash cycle being too slow.
Hence, it is important to organize your laundry according to the appropriate washing cycles beforehand. Do be mindful that your washing machine comes with a built-in temperature range for each washing cycle. For example, clothes that are made of cotton or cotton based are suitable for the temperature range between 30 ℃ to 90℃. Therefore, you will need to pay more attention to the temperature range that is suitable for your clothes in your future laundry sessions. Practicing this step would help in making your cotton clothes last longer!
Wash in Cold Water
One of our favourite tips in ensuring the durability of our cotton shirts is to wash them in cold water. Not only would using cold water help you prolong the shelf life of your clothes but also save money and the environment too! Coldwater is great because it goes well with many types of clothes and is able to remove multiple types of stains as well. For instance, mud on your football shorts or makeup smudges on your cotton hoodie.
Moreover, washing your clothes with cold water is great for your delicate clothes. Clothes such as blouses or dresses are easier to clean when soaked with cold water and the low temperature would not derail the quality of materials for the clothes too! The same can be said about dark coloured fabrics as well. Plus, your clothes are less likely to shrink and fade through cold water washing. It helps in reducing wrinkles and saves energy because less ironing is involved!
While washing your cotton clothes in cold water worked most of the time, there are times when washing in cold water would not present you the desired result. Coldwater is not an efficient way to sanitise your beddings and clothes. That honour belongs to warm water. Climate can also affect the efficiency of your detergents. Thus, you might need to use warm water for more efficient cleaning rather than cold water. Keep these matters in mind and you’re good to go!
Turn Your Shirts Inside Out
You might not know this but turning your cotton shirts inside out can actually help prolong your shirts’ shelf life. How so, you may ask. Well, turning your shirts inside out helps in preserving clothes that are prone to fading. This will be majorly beneficial for dark coloured clothes as it helps in retaining colours and tone.
Speaking of retaining, turning your cotton shirt inside out helps with treating odour retention in your clothes. It helps the detergents and water reach the difficult parts that are usually hard to wash.
The same can be said about customise t shirt as well, turning your shirts inside out does help with preventing the print or your shirt’s design from cracking. This step will help greatly with screen-printed cotton shirts as it protects the screen prints from abrasions and friction shared with other garments in the washing machine as well. You might want to start doing this on your favourite shirts from today onwards!
Use Mesh Bag
Laundry bag, mesh bag, delicates bag, whichever names you prefer to call it, the primary point of this tool is to protect and prolong the life-span of your clothes. When using the washing machine, it is important for you to organise your laundry properly. Hence, the delicate cotton shirts or fragile undergarment should be placed inside the mesh bag.
Aside from keeping your clothes intact after every wash, a mesh bag is also useful in keeping your clothes in place as well. For example, small pieces of clothes such as cotton mittens and socks can be difficult to find and gathered after every session if it’s not placed in the mesh bag. So that’s one more reason for you to have it! When choosing a mesh bag, you can opt for mesh bags with zipper closure for your ease of convenience. For long term use, get yourself a durable mesh bag that is made of thicker mesh nets. That would be an efficient and economical choice for your daily use!
In conclusion, these tips would greatly help your cotton shirts last longer. Now that you are able to keep and wear your favourite shirts for a longer period, that would help you save quite a sum of money on new clothes!
