Ironing Tools for Dress Shirts

Series Summary

Irons and other machines used to smooth fabrics have been used for centuries, beginning in China in the 1st century B.C. There have been many designs for irons since then, including cast iron slabs heated in fire or with coal, liquid fuel irons and electric irons. Most irons work in a similar fashion, by using heat, pressure and steam to remove wrinkles or form creases in clothes. Ironing is typically performed on an ironing board, which is a heat resistant folding table.

In this free video series, our expert will teach you how to iron a men's dress shirt. You will learn each easy to follow step for preparing dress shirts for ironing, ironing the neck, the sleeves, the front and back. Get tips and advice for ironing dress shirts, including shirts made of synthetic fiber, and other delicate fiber. Also learn how to use steamers to get rid of wrinkles in tank tops and polo shirts. Let our expert show you the basics of ironing your men's dress shirts with this free video series.

Video Transcript

"Hello, I'm Donna Beth Joy Shapiro on behalf of ExpertVillage.com and today I'm going to show you how to iron a shirt. In this clip we're going to talk about the tools you will need to iron a man's dress shirt. You need an iron. This is a steam iron, it's a nice heavy iron. The heavier the better. The higher wattage the better, this is 1750 watts, gives you a nice burst of steam, gives you a spray. You could use a less expensive iron. It does exactly the same thing. It may not get as hot as this particular iron but with the right starch or spray water you'll be able to get all the wrinkles out of your shirt. If you have a synthetic shirt and you want to give it a certain amount of shine you could using sizing. A sizing is used only on synthetic fabrics. For cotton shirts, linen shirts, starch gives the garment a lot of body. I like heavy starch, some people prefer the lighter starch. If you don't want to use either of those but you have very stubborn wrinkles you could just spray it with water. You also need an ironing board. This is a standard size ironing board. Ironing boards do come wider now and the bigger the board the better. The covers are a little hard to find for the bigger boards though. If all you have is a table top board you want to make sure that you put the board at the corner of the table so the garment can hang free over the side of the table. If you have this in the middle of the table you will not be able to get the wrinkles out of your shirt. You are going to keep wrinkling it every time you move it."