How To Use Starch On Men's Dress Shirts

The phrase is used for men, but it could apply to a woman too – for a well-dressed, sophisticated woman, the best accessory that can go with her personality is a handsome, well-dressed man. Since not many men pay attention to details about their dresses, it is left to us women to keep sprucing them up from time to time. Many of them wouldn’t care if their shirts were not ironed or their socks were mismatched. Most of them wouldn’t know that their shirts would look better if they were slightly starched rather than just ironed. So it is up to you to take care of these little details. Here’s how to starch and iron men’s dress shirts.

Image: tarrytown@flickr

Starching Men’s Shirt
Here’s the process of applying starch to men’s shirts and later iron them out for the extra professional look:

Since too much starch sprayed on the shirt can make it hard, (and unwearable!), you should be very careful while spraying it. Keep the spray can at least a foot away from the shirt.
By convention as well as convenience, the collar of the shirt is one of the first places that will become wrinkled if you keep turning the shirt around. Lay the shirt face down, with the back of the collar up. Spray a light spray of starch across the collar. Iron from one side to the other, applying steady pressure. Flip the shirt over. Flatten the collar out on the board. Spray a light spray of starch and iron the front of the collar.
Those who think a crease near the cuff button would be hardly noticeable can iron the cuff with the button on. Or, you can unbutton the cuff and spread it out across the board if like to do things just the way they should be done. Spray a layer of starch and iron the cuff flat. To iron the sleeves of a dress shirt, line up the seams of the shirt with the shirt facing up. Lay the seams parallel on the ironing board. Flatten the sleeve down, pulling toward each of the seams to make sure that the fabric does not bunch up beneath the layers. Spray a layer of starch over the arm and then iron the arm. Flip the shirt over and do the same on the back of the sleeve.
In the similar way, lay flat the shoulder on the small end of your table or ironing board, spray it carefully with starch again and iron out all the wrinkles.
Starching and ironing the back could be a little time consuming because it creases easily. You could accomplish this by laying one side of the front of the shirt up on the board and let the rest of the shirt hang off the board; now apply starch spray like always and iron the front of the shirt until the starch is dry.
The back of the shirt is one more place that gives away wrinkles very easily. Place the shirt face down on the board with the back flattened out completely. Spray the starch liberally and iron out wrinkles.

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