How to Wash Men's Dress Shirts | Cleaning Dress Shirts

When do I know for sure if my dress shirt is dirty?

I usually look at the neck and cuffs. That's where I start to see dirt and deposits. As you go about your day, it peels right off your skin, oil and dirt, which are absorbed from the air.

That's where I first noticed. Occasionally, I get coffee stains or something on it, but mostly, I start to see a little bit of ringing around the collar. Why is this important?

Why don't you wash your shirts every time you wear them?

The reason this is important is to think that your dress shirt has a very limited lifespan, because it does. Every time you wash that dress shirt, you can only do so many times before it falls apart or becomes unwearable.

I want to tell everyone that this shirt can only be washed 100 times. Now, how many times you can wear it between those 100 washes is up to you.

I've found that it depends on how much I'm sweating and how long I've been wearing them throughout the day. If I only wear a dress shirt for a few hours, I wear it a few more times.

If I'm wearing that shirt and I wear it 12 hours a day and I'm sweating all the time, I can look, I can feel the shirt needs to be washed. If you're an architect working outdoors in Florida in the summer, you'll want to wash your dress shirts every day.

If you're in Victoria, Canada, and you're only working outside for a few hours, and most of the time you're sitting at a desk, you might find that at the end of the day you take off that shirt and it's not dirty at all.

Wearing it two or three days, maybe three days over the course of a month is still doable. I'd say try not to do laundry though unless it's really dirty and lasts longer.

• Avoid the dryer.The dryer can ruin your fancy dress shirts. Let them air dry, but if you must use the dryer, pull them out while they are still damp.
• Avoid bleach.It eats up the cotton. Bleach is cool on undershirts, socks, but not on fancy dress shirts.
• Avoid heat, so do not wash with hot water. You've probably heard that bleach and hot water help remove stains -- and that's just for socks.
• Avoid overuse of detergents.As men, we like to think, "Oh, well, here's a dirty shirt, and if one scoop is good, maybe five or six scoops are better."
• Don't waste your money.It's better to wash several times with less detergent than to think you can put in 5 scoops and do it all in one wash.

If you're going to use detergent, use a good quality cleaner. I use tidal. I've used a few low end detergents and I've found that usually, the detergent is usually worth the money.

A lot of people would say, "Well, with Tidal, you're paying for the brand." Well, that's a bad deal for the time it took me to go back and see it was missing a stain and have to go back small money.

Also, make sure to look for any stains before putting the shirt in the washing machine. They have these spot sticks that you put a little cleanser on.

I usually just take a little cleaner and wipe it off with a toothbrush. We have a toothbrush in the laundry room and I just rub it in and it sits in there for a few minutes before I toss it in the washer.

This is how I clean my dress shirts. BTW, I don't put them in the dryer. I let them hang out and then I would iron them. I actually have to iron my dress shirts when they are a little wet.

Good luck with your laundry.