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How Do I Take Care of My Custom Tee? – The T-Shirt Care Guide

Your custom t-shirt design is a work of art, and like any masterpiece, one must take special care to preserve it.  Shirts are meant to be worn, but if you're worried about them getting too worn, follow our advice in taking care of your cool custom clothing, be it the result of a screen print, direct to garment, or heat transferred vinyl.

If you’re savvy with those often mysterious symbols on a laundry care tag, you’re probably already ahead of the curve when it comes to caring for clothing. However, you have to keep in mind that those instructions don’t take into account the custom design that’s printed on your brand new custom tee. You can follow these general washing tips to keep both your shirt and your artwork looking fresh.

Wash T-Shirt Inside-OutWash Inside-Out in Cold Water with Similar Clothes Using a Gentle Wash Cycle

Turn your custom tee inside out when putting it in the washer, and make sure it's with similar style clothing. This means similar colors AND similar fabric.

Throwing your custom shirt in the wash with rougher clothing with embellishments like buttons and zippers can damage your custom design as they clash together over and over in the washing machine. 

Heat is a custom printed tee’s worst enemy, so unless you've been showing off your sick tee to a bunch of sick kids at the hospital, you only need to use cold water when putting it in the wash. Make sure to set the machine to the gentle cycle so that it treats your custom shirt the way it deserves to be treated! 

Do Not Bleach ShirtDo Not Use Bleach or Dry Clean

Use the appropriate detergent when washing your custom tee: nothing too strong and definitely not bleach. Don't use too much detergent, either! Generally, half the recommended detergent dosage will suffice. 

Hang-Dry ShirtHang-dry or Tumble Dry on Low

If you've got the space for it, we recommended hanging your custom tee out to dry. No, that's not a metaphor. Air dry your shirt to avoid all that rumbling and tumbling in the clothes dryer. Let them dry away from sunlight, as long exposure to that kind of heat isn't good for it either. 

If you insist on tossing your custom tee into the dryer, use the lowest possible heat setting. Again, high heat will not only damage your custom printed designs, but the material it's printed on as well. A burnt up shirt means burnt up money. Don't burn money! 

Iron Inside-OutIron Inside-Out on the Lowest Setting

So your beautiful custom tee survived the wash, and it's nice and dry, but we know you don't want any pesky wrinkles ruining the look of your design! If you need to iron your tee, make sure to flip that t-shirt inside-out before pressing that hot iron onto it at the lowest setting. 

Talk To A T-Shirt Design Specialist!