How to Wash Your Custom Clothing

GetBold and Keep it Bold

Custom apparel lets you showcase your unique qualities. Just like you, it is unique. Any placement of design, illustration, or wording that you add, makes your article of clothing a unique message to the people around you. Keep it looking great by washing and caring for it in the best possible way.

 A lot of thought goes into creating your custom clothing. If it’s for your staff, or a company uniform, or possibly your own brand of clothing, you know you have spent a lot of time making it just right. So naturally, the garment needs to be cared to keep it in great shape for as long as possible.

GetBold would like to make sure you know how to properly care for your custom clothing, especially the proper way to clean it. This is not the usual laundry treatment you’ve been used to or taught by your family. We’re in the business of creating custom apparel, so naturally, over the years, we have learned a thing or two about caring for it.

Tips for the Care and Cleaning of

Custom Apparel

Coldwater washing is just fine for just about all clothes washing. There are plenty of household items that can and should be washed in hot water, mainly for sterilization, like towels and washcloths, bedding, dishtowels, and so on. But hot water can be hard on clothing, weakening the fibres, and so, many garments are intended to be washed in cold water. Laundry soap is also formulated to be used, and so does a good job of cleaning, in cold water. So, keep it cold and let the detergent do the work.

If your custom garment includes embroidery, especially if that embroidery is colourful, it requires special care. Fading, distortion, and stretching can result from machine washing. This means that you should either wash your embroidered clothing by hand or if you must machine wash all your clothing, place the special custom articles in a special bag and only wash on gentle cycles. Typically, handwashing involves gentler detergents and far less agitation, so it is always safer. Bunching up an embroidered garment isn’t a good idea either, keep it flat so that it isn’t wrinkled when it dries.

One protective measure while washing special custom clothing is to turn it inside out. This is similar to placing it in a bag. You might try both if you are going to repeatedly machine wash. Since your design is now on the inside, it won’t be rubbing up against surrounding materials. Sometimes, colour can transfer in the wash and discolour garments.

Certain materials require certain stain treatments. Read the label. Some fabrics and some stains require soaking. Some you want to make sure not to soak in warm or hot water, that may set the stain. If you need to use a stain remover, make sure it is a colourfast stain remover.

Certain chemicals like bleaches cause fibres to break down. Any products with chlorine bleach or even so-called “colour-safe” bleaches should also be avoided. Any screen-printed designs, heat-transfer designs, or any special features, don’t do well with these chemicals. It is easy for colours to fade in these strong chemicals.

Avoid drying your garments in the dryer. Hang dry instead, or in the case of embroidered garments, lay them flat to avoid wrinkling. Dryers can shrink some features disproportionately to the rest of the garment. Any high heat is a bad thing. It often cracks and fades designs. Irons are another source of heat. If you must iron, and we do realize that is a reality, use a cloth or towel between the iron and the garment. Use low heat and iron on opposite sides of the design. This also applies to steam. Heat is heat, even if it is wet heat.

At GetBold, we consider custom clothing to be a form of self-expression. Treat your custom apparel like a work of art. It, and you, deserve it.