How to Wash Screen Printed Shirts
So you have finally bought your first screen printed shirt and you are wondering how to take care of it to ensure its longevity? It can be quite disheartening to see your expensive screen printed garment crack or fade after washing and wearing it a few times.
How to Wash Screen Printed Shirts - 5 Things to Keep in Mind
While it's without a doubt that the durability of your screen printed shirt depends on the prowess of the printer and the quality of the shirt's material, it also depends on how your washing practices. In this article, we have put together a few tips on how to safely wash your screen printed shirts to increase its lifespan and make it worth your money.
How to Wash Screen Printed Shirts Correctly
1. Avoid Using Hot Water
First and foremost, if you want to increase the lifespan of your screen printed garments, you have to avoid washing them in hot water cycles, unless they are covered with tough stains and mud and you want to disinfect the clothes.
Hot water isn't gentle on fabrics, and if you use it to wash your screen printed shirts, it will destroy both the fabric and printing. Instead, use cold water to wash your shirts as it's gentle on the fabric and gets them totally clean without fading them.
2. Avoid Using Bleach or Other Strong Cleaning Products
Like hot water, strong detergents like bleach are harsh on screen printed shirts. You can use stain removers if you want to remove stains and spots from your screen printed garments. Also, use only mild cleaning solutions on your clothes during the cycles.
3. Wash Your Shirts Inside-out
It's recommended that you turn your screen printed clothes inside out before putting them in your washing machine and ironing them. That way, you'll significantly reduce the fading of your garments and increase their lifespan.
Don't let the screen-printed clothes stay too long in the washing machine to avoid straining the ink. You also don’t want to wash them after every use because every time you wash the garments, you are speeding up their aging process. If your shirts are really dirty, you can go ahead and clean them.
4. Wash Similar Garments Together
Have you ever seen your white shirt turn to blue after washing it, and wondered what could have caused that? The reason could be that you washed it together with another blue shirt, and the blue color bled into your white shirt, making it blue. That’s why you need to wash one design color at a time. Also, wash only the designs with similar fabric together to different fabrics from rubbing against each which creates cracks due to friction.
5. Don't Put Your Shirts in a Hot Dryer
Another thing to remember when drying your screen printed shirts is to avoid increasing the heat of the dryer. Also, remove them before they are totally dry and place them on a clothing line outside to dry naturally.
Hopefully, following these five tips will now teach you how to wash screen printed shirts help you protect your screen printed shirts from fading and increase their lifespan.
