The Shirt From Hell – via Slate.com
This one comes by way of an article sent along by Ben, our Arts and Culture correspondent. Written by Daniel Akst for Slate, it’s an all out assault on wrinkle free shirts. Akst points out that the no-iron finish is achieved by: “a formaldehyde resin bath” and proceeds to label these shirts “vehicles of self-mortification, sackcloth and ashes adorned with stripes and spread collars.” He’s not a fan apparently. Here’s the argument for each:
The case for Wrinkle Free: As entertaining as the article is, it’s hyperbolic to the point of hyperventilation. So what if they’re dipped in formaldehyde? There’s a potential cancer risk in using your cell phone, and Akst makes it sound like you’re wearing the skin of a cadaver. It’s chemically treated. Just about everything is. He talks of how bad these shirts smell, how they don’t breathe, and how they’re scratchy. That’s not my experience. He even says this applies to a shirt he bought from Nordstrom. Sorry, but the Nordstrom Trim Fit wrinkle-free in my closet has never smelled like “the New Jersey Turnpike around Exit 13.” I’ll take an all cotton wrinkle free over a 60/40 poly blend any day.
The case for Regular Cotton: Is Ironing really that hard? It can be a bit of a pain, but if you set aside a time of the week (say, during the Sunday Night football game) it almost becomes ignorable. Some people even LIKE to iron. And while his view of the texture of a no-iron shirt might be a little overblown, they do feel different than a regular cotton dress shirt. It seems like there’s some markup on wrinkle-free shirts too. And y’know, more often than not they come out of the dryer and still need to be ironed. Wrinkle-free should mean they won’t wrinkle. Ever.
There’s the case for each side. Time for you to pick one. Or, are you like many and ride the fence? Do you own both regular cotton as well as wrinkle free dress shirts? Leave your take and vote in the comments below.
I agree that “wrinkle-free” SHOULD mean no wrinkles ever. But, we live in an imperfect world. PJ O’Rourke once said “Endust, doesn’t actually end dust. It just makes it lemon-scented”. That’s kind of my view. I’ve owned both types and have had good luck with both. But, if some ironing is required at some point anyway, I’ll stick with regular cotton.
I agree with Facebook. Not paying up for something I’m going to have to iron anyway and doesn’t feel as nice to begin with.
I just wear ocbd’s 90% of the time, and if they start out fresh-from-the dryer, I can usually get away with not ironing them and wear em a good 3 times before washing again.
I haven’t ironed in ages. I find that when I remove my clothes promptly from the dryer and hang them up right away, they don’t get wrinkles at all. This is true for pants and shirts, non-iron or not.
There’s nothing like a good wrinkle-free for international travel, when finding dry cleaning can be a chore and shirts come out of the suitcase looking like rumpled handkerchiefs. But regular cotton feels so much better that 95% of the time, the ironing is worth it.
I’d say what makes a shirt great is 1) fit, 2) texture, and 3) color. Even with regular cotton shirts, it’s not always easy to find the right combination of crispness and softness. No-iron shirts generally have a really strange texture, and usually they’re cut in boxier sizes too.
I’ve got both types but I’m starting to lean more toward the wrinkle free. While I still may have to iron them a little, I like that they hold up much better through the work day.
While you may still have to iron a wrinkle-free shirt, their main benefit is after sitting in a chair all day, the back of your shirt won’t look like a relief map for Afghanistan.
I buy both, but I also invested in a garment steamer. Got if off Woot.com. Best purchase I ever made. I don’t have to iron anything anymore, and it’s even great for getting wrinkles out of something like a t-shirt that would be just silly to iron.
Right now I’m wearing a wrinkle-free Brooks Brothers slim fit that I got at a thrift store. The fabric has a nice weight, it’s soft, and it’s comfortable, so I don’t know why people think they don’t feel good. I don’t buy wrinkle-free new, I guess because I read that they might be bad for your skin or something, and because I lean towards traditionalism, but I just can’t agree with people who say the fabric looks or feels bad.
There’s a better solution – take it to a dry cleaner. For $1.20 I can get any shirt in the closet cleaned and pressed. For a fraction of the cash that I blow on coffee each day, my shirts look great. Life is too short for ironing.
As for the texture, I tend to be very perceptive to these things. I’ve never noticed the difference, and I definitely have no idea what he’s talking about regarding the smell.
i feel like buying a wrinkle free is like buying a paired shirt and tie set.
Make and model?
Rowenta Precision Valet Garment Steamer http://www.rowentausa.com/rowenta/frame.aspx
Y’know I’m not so sure that spending $1.20 to have one shirt washed and pressed is a “better” solution for a lot of us.
Since every manufacture’s process for making wrinkle free is proprietary and not disclosed to the public, it is not known that formaldehyde is used in the treatment of all wrinkle free of all shirts. A test by the General Accountability Office, which is probably the uncited study where he got his idea from, did find that there was a much higher than reported off gassing of formaldehyde in the chemical process used in treating 180 clothing articles sampled (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10875.pdf). However this was only 5.5% of the total sample, the majority tested at either undetectable or near undetectable levels of formaldehyde.
Furthermore, the GAP, Banana Republic, Levi’s (+ subsidiaries) and Land End all test at undetectable and state a commitment to doing so for their wrinkle free line. Furthermore, a couple of washings will remove most if not all formaldehyde as it is an off gassing of the treatment process, not an actual bath as the author states. This is just another case of a person reading a limited interpretation of a study without understanding or caring to read all the data. There were disturbing findings in the study, such as the level found in some crib furniture and a child’s baseball hat, but in general this was taken completely out of context.
As much as I’m embarrassed to admit this, the Jos A. Bank Tailored Traveler Wrinkle Free dress shirts are great and never wrinkle. I’ll buy one, wash it, have it trimmed on the sides, and that’s it. A benefit of the JAB shirts is that they aren’t dipped in formaldehyde. The agent that makes it wrinkle free is embedded in the material. My only gripe with their shirts is that the collars are way too long.
We carry wrinkle free shirts here in Johnston & Murphy. They are soft and certainly don’t have any odor!
Agree w/ Matthew Watson… Reasons to purchase a shirt are fit, texture, color. If I like it I’m going ot buy it regardles of it’s wrinkle (free) status. besides it all goes to the cleaner anyway. The plus for the wrinkle free is that they only need a touch up with the steamer to wear a second time.
Just for the record, there is no risk of getting cancer from cell phone radiation. None.
The absorption frequency wavelength bottom barrier for human DNA is roughly 2880 Angstroms. Or, 2880 atoms side by side. Cell phones operate at 880 MHz, which translates to a wavelength of roughly .3m.
What that means is the radiation that comes from your cell phone is roughly 10 orders of magnitude too small to mutate your DNA to cause cancer.
Just sayin…
Is that good or bad?
Yeah, except for all that information that we don’t understand yet…
For the cost of 1/4th of a cap-full of extra sensitive detergent you can wash 2-4 shirts in the sink and be assured that they won’t shrink, run, etc.
I pretty much exclusively wear L.L. Bean Wrinkle Free Oxfords for dress shirts. They are heavier than most shirts, but they are great quality and as long as don’t leave them in the dryer overnight, I never have to iron them. Also being a guy that rarely wears an undershirt, I find the fabric isn’t nearly as likely to show sweat on a hot day.
I’m as much of a purist as the next guy, but every day isn’t a fashion show and sometimes it’s easier to go with wrinkle free. There are days when the last thing you need to think about is ironing, but alas, a shirt is needed! Thank you formaldehyde. Thank you very much.
I split the difference, I have a few wrinkle free/poly content shirts that I can bust out without having to iron. But all of my really nice dressy shirts are cotton that need lots of ironing. This way you get the best of both worlds…
BANANA REPUBLIC slim-fit, non-iron – I have 15 in different colors…and I’ve never ironed one of them.
Regular cotton. All day.
I don’t think the biggest advantage of wrinkle-free over regular cotton shirts is that it does not need to be ironed. Instead, it is because they don’t wrinkle while you wear it…
I iron because I don’t like to run dress shirts through the dryer(and a lot of other clothes for that matter). My shirts will last longer having never endured the abuse from the dryer.
I dry clean most of the shirts I wear to work (Express shirts), and machine wash (on delicate) my nicer shirts, like J. Crew and Uniqlo. None of them are tumble-dried, which is TERRIBLE for shirts, and so I iron the ones that I wash at home anyway. Ironing is not that bad. The worst chore ever is mopping, followed by dishes, and I would iron for an hour over doing those other chores for 15 minutes.
To add: everyone I know (my cousin, you guys) who wears Express 1MX shirts complains about how they fall apart after less than a year, but they last essentially indefinitely when dry cleaned.
Wrinkle-free all the way. A dollar here and there for dry cleaning adds up absurdly quickly, as does time for ironing. I’m all about streamlining the unnecessary hassles in life and focusing on the big picture, and non-iron shirts are an integral part of that paradigm.
Not only that, but non-iron shirts just look better. Even the best iron job can’t prevent a normal cotton shirt from looking, as Bryant aptly put it, like a relief map of Afghanistan after a day’s wear. Even newly ironed, they don’t look quite as smooth and silky.
Lastly, anyone who criticizes non-iron on the grounds of breathability or softness has never tried on a non-iron Supima cotton shirt (try Brooks Brothers). It’s like wearing summer clouds on your torso. Additionally, how can someone who wears a shirt imbued with starch complain about the texture of non-iron? Starch ruins the feel of shirts, imho.
I never put my dress shirts in the dryer (always hang-dry), so wrinkle free does nothing for me.
I generally just buy what’s on sale, but given the same price point will buy regular cotton. I just have a feeling it will last longer.
I have one Nordstrom cotton french cuff shirt that I’ve worn about 6 times and it now looks all frayed and rough. My wife who is excellent with cleaning and ironing can’t be blamed for this. All cotton shirts suck in my opinion.
I find that wrinkle free, though it does require ironing, requires FAR LESS ironing than regular cotton. Just a touch of the iron and it looks perfect all day, whereas my regular cotton shirts NEVER look pressed no matter how much I iron them, and I hate ironing. I will never, ever buy anything other than wrinkle free again.