Hang the shirt in the bathroom while you shower

On light creases, yes; on a shirt that came out of a suitcase folded in four, not really — and the people here argue exactly that line. Four separate conversations hang the garment in the bathroom while they take a hot shower and say the steam relaxes the fibres and the creases fall out; two more say the same and add the shake afterwards, and single accounts add the rest: cover the vent or switch off the fan so the steam builds, tug the fabric gently along the creases when you take it down, and clip clothespins to the hem and cuffs so the weight pulls the creases while it hangs. Against that, an exchange across three conversations on one side and one on the other has the one saying it does not work well in practice; two more exchanges, one account each way, say it never worked for them however long they left it, and that it works only with zero ventilation and a long hot shower, which is not a real morning; and one exchange, two accounts to one, calls the whole thing a waste of water. The cautions narrow it honestly: one says shower steam handles light wrinkling only; one says the variant that leaves the shirt hanging for four hours is a wait, not a trick; one says a damp garment in a closed room grows mould; one, repeated by two objecting accounts, says hard water leaves white spots on dark clothes when you steam them this way and that a proper steamer does more. The accounts’ own deciders: how much ventilation the room has, how long the shower is, and how set the creases are. This page’s reading: for the shirt that hung in the wardrobe and creased at the elbows, the shower is enough; for the one that travelled, go to the third question. And before you shut the door — the smoke alarm, which is the safety line above and the one thing in these conversations that got a proper correction.

Two things, both from the accounts: the dryer with something damp in it, or a spray bottle and a hard shake. Three separate conversations put the creased garment in the dryer with a damp cloth or a couple of ice cubes, and say the moisture turns to steam in the heat and the creases drop out — three accounts in one place and two in another say it is their standing method, and one account puts only one or two garments in at a time so the steam reaches them. One caution rated high: the cloth must be clean, because a dirty rag in a hot dryer marks the shirt. One exchange, one account each way, argues a damp rag against misting the garment itself before it goes in; one objection wonders whether ice melts fast enough to matter, and one caution says never to spray water into the dryer drum — onto the clothes, then in. The spray method, two conversations: mist the garment with plain water, or with water and a little fabric softener — one account’s ratio is eight to one — smooth it flat by hand or hang it and shake, and let it dry; one caution says it leaves wet spots if you wear it too soon, and one account uses a splash of vodka in the water because the alcohol dries faster and takes odours with it. Two conversations use a hairdryer on the hanging garment with a wrinkle-release spray, which is the hotel-room version of the same idea. For a single stubborn crease, two conversations press it with a clean hair straightener or the base of a warmed pan — one caution says the plates must be clean, and another that pans scorch fabric and burn hands, so this page carries it as theirs and not as a recommendation. And two conversations say the honest thing: a garment steamer is the right tool — with one caution that a steamer cannot make a crease where you want one, so pleats still need an iron — and one account says a basic iron is cheap — one account’s figure is under fifteen dollars and ends the whole question.

Match the method to the crease, the fabric and the room — the accounts’ cautions sort it. Light creasing on cotton or a blend, a bathroom with a window or a door you can crack, and a shower you were taking anyway: the shower, with a shake after. Ten minutes and a tumble dryer: the damp cloth or the ice, one or two garments, clean rag, and take it out warm and hang it at once — it goes straight onto a hanger. No dryer, no time: the spray and the shake, then a few minutes on a hanger by an open window. A suitcase shirt, folded hard: heat as well as moisture — a steamer, or the iron one account says most non-budget hotels put in the room; the shower alone will disappoint you, and a caution says so. A delicate fabric — silk, wool, anything with a care label that says low heat — is the gap these conversations name several times over, and this page names it too: the accounts have no tested method for delicates, and delicate fabrics are a gap the accounts named, and this page’s own guess is that the cool spray-and-hang is the safest of theirs. Dark clothes in a hard-water house: not the shower, because of the white marks two accounts describe; the dryer or the spray with softened or bottled water. And one caution for the reader with a hair straightener in hand: the plates must be clean — and a contraindication says the stretch method is not for polyester. If the wrinkles are in your trousers rather than your shirt, one account smooths them by hand halfway through the drying cycle, which is prevention rather than repair and belongs to the fifth question.

Roll it, or don’t carry it at all — the commuting accounts have both. Single accounts roll the shirt rather than folding it, so there is no straight fold line; put tissue paper between the folds where a fold is unavoidable; roll it into a tight ball rather than folding it flat; or use a rigid garment folder made for the purpose, with the caution that one account found it too bulky for a light bag. One account hangs clean shirts at the office and cycles home in the day’s clothes, so the pressed garment never travels — with the caution from another that this fails if you work from more than one place and cannot remember where the shirts are. One account starches shirts so they hold their shape folded, and two cautions answer: starch makes the fibres brittle and shortens a shirt’s life, and can make a crease show more, not less. Two conversations take the dress shirts to a dry cleaner and accept the cost per shirt; an argument runs through these conversations about the health effects of dry-cleaning solvents that is a different subject and is not settled here. At the other end, the hotel version: the hairdryer and the release spray from the second question, the shower from the first with the vent covered — one caution says hotel vents must be blocked for the steam to build, and the alarm line still applies — or the iron from reception.

Mostly, and three conversations say the trick is timing. Take the garment out of the dryer the moment it stops, button it, straighten the collar, and hang it — three separate conversations say gravity does the rest while it cools, and a prevalence note says three accounts stopped ironing altogether once they did this; one account smooths trousers by hand halfway through the cycle so the creases never set. Then fabric. Two conversations buy shirts made to resist wrinkling — non-iron cottons and blends — and one says that a garment which creases badly however you treat it should be given away rather than fought; one exchange, four accounts to one, says a good non-iron shirt genuinely stays smooth through a commute, and another, two to one, says a good share of ‘wrinkle-free’ labels are not, and one caution adds that a heavily creased non-iron shirt can be hard to iron back into shape. The brands the accounts argue over are not named here, because which one is good changes by year. One exchange, one account each way, is whether fabric softener ruins a non-iron finish or is the only thing that stops the shirt feeling like sandpaper; the decider is the care label and your own skin. And the cheapest prevention of all, from one account: an iron, which costs very little, and a shirt that is hung up the day it is washed. If your problem is a garment that came out of the wash the wrong size rather than the wrong shape, the page on soaking a shrunk jumper is the sibling of this one.