Knowing the Proper care for your dress shirts is essential in keeping your shirts crisp and in good condition, while projecting a well-groomed appearance.

Many men ask "how do I clean and take care of my custom shirts"

Tips on how to care and extend the life of your dress shirts:

Wash your brand new custom dress shirt before wearing to, remove any toxic chemicals and to make the material softer.

To avoid embarrassing moments and the nuisance of loosing a button. Routinely check your custom shirt to see if the buttons are secure, or if there are any loose threads.

To preserve the fabric and color, machine wash your custom dress shirts using a gentle cycle with luke-warm water.

Do not dry-clean your shirts! The chemicals in dry cleaning fluid will destroy the fabric or even turn your custom shirts yellow. Instead, request that your shirts be laundered.

Starching while pressing causes cotton fibers in custom dress shirts to weaken. To keep a crisp look, buy a custom shirt with a high thread count.

To avoid antiperspirant stains, spray your deodorant or cologne on your body and wait for it to dry before wearing the dress shirt.

To prevent permanent staining, promptly wash your custom dress shirt before the stain sets and is absorbed in the fabric.

To avoid lifting the color out of your shirts or "color runs", separate your shirts before laundering into three categories. whites, colors and darks. To get your white shirts whiter, use bleach like Clorox. For colors, use a diluted solution or special bleach for colors. As for your dark colored shirts, avoid bleaching all together.

Check for stains and clean before pressing. Heat from an iron will permanently set the stain into the fabric.

Unless you have a great steam iron, its best to iron your custom dress shirts while the fabric is damp, so you do not scorch or damage the fabric. It will also make it easier to get out all the wrinkles.

Tips for Ironing your custom dress shirts:

Collar - To iron the collar, starting from its underside. Iron away from the collar points toward the back of the neck area. Then turn the shirt over and iron the same way for the front of the collar.

Yoke - Iron the yoke area starting from the neck outwards to the center of the shirt. If there are pleats at the yoke, iron the pleats flat in the direction of the fold.

Cuff - Similar to the collars, iron the cuffs inside out. Always remember to lay the sleeves flat and start from the cuff upward, then iron the other side as well.

Shirt body - Iron the torso starting from the shoulders down to the shirt ends. Do it step by step starting from the right torso panel then to the left panel. This will keep each side equally well-ironed. Remember to iron in-between the buttons as well with the iron tip.

Hanging your Custom shirts:

To keep your custom dress shirts in a nice shape, use wooden or plastic hangers with firm shoulders. Wire hangers will destroy the shape of your custom shirts

For more information on men's custom dress shirts please visit www.BestCustomShirt.com.

This article was posted on February 27, 2006