$2.50 a shirt? Highway robbery. I pay less than half that and while I don't have the ring around the collar issue, I have gotten stains in shirts that my dry cleaner treats for no extra charge. Do you have your shirts laundered or dry cleaned? The $1.00 a shirt I pay is for laundering and pressing.

 

helpmedress25:

I have some advice in my book, The Encyclopedia of Men's Clothes. Here's what "Ring Around the Collar" really is and if you wash your shirts at home ...

RING AROUND THE COLLAR. Try a presoak stain remover solution or shampoo or dishwashing liquid, then wash.

The "dirt" on your shirt collar after a long day isn't really dirt! It's not that you don't have a clean neck! On your collar is a collection of melanin pigment from shed skin cells, since the shirt collar is the area that has rubbed off the most skin cells.

You can drop off your shirts at a professional laundry or if you want them to last longer you can wash them yourself. Self-laundry can be therapeutic!

Do it Yourself: Wash your dress shirts separately from your other clothes. Use warm or cold temperature water. Hot water can set a stain. While you're waiting for the washer to fill use a stain remover or liquid detergent on the collar and cuffs. Let the water and the detergent mix for a minute before you add your shirts to the machine.

Don't over-dry your shirts. Put them in the dryer, wait a few minutes and hang them up. While they are still damp is a perfect time to iron them!

Laundry starch comes from the complex carbohydrate manufactured by plants! Corn provides 80% of commercial starch.

There are some advantages to using starch on dress shirts:

Starch gives a crisp look to your shirts.

Starch makes ironing easier by eliminating iron drag

The moisture in the starch provides steam when you iron so you can use a lower steam setting on the iron.

Starch provides some protection to fabrics from stains.

And some disadvantages:

Fraying! After months of starching, residue builds up in the collars, cuffs, and seams where the there is a double layer of fabric and difficult to flush clean. Starch dries out the threads until they eventually snap or fray. This can reduce the garment's lifetime.
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I use liquid detergent (Tide) and a toothbrush to treat the collar and any other stains prior to laundering the shirts myself. No dryer, just hang them up to dry...

 

That's what I do too for any tougher stain. There are very few that won't be remedied via this method. But for normal laundering, I still use an old product that used to be named Stain Stick (Because it's a concentrated solid in stick form.) but which is now named Spray and Wash. (Though it isn't a spray.) Used as a matter of course, it cleans rings and most other things if the shirt hasn't already been laundered with those stains in it.

 

Thanks very much all.

 

Unless there are circumstances which would prevent you from doing so, why not launder and press your shirts yourself. While I don't have a problem with ring around the collar I do pre treat them as well as inside cuffs that sometime get soiled from rubbing against watch. I use nail brush with Kirkmans or Borax brown soap or stain bar from the Laundress as well as their liquid stain product then use their liquid detergent or, use whatever products you might prefer. Wash then hang wet. I never use any bleach. I like my whites to pop so I'll blue those separate after final rinse. Old fashioned ? I know, but works for me.

 

"Temporary fix"? The whole notion of washing clothes is a temporary fix with that logic.

The danger of not getting the collars clean is that the stains become permanent.

 

It's battery operated. Pour a little detergent onto the stain (there is even a small squirt bottle you can get), turn it on, and rub it into the stains. This thing is a pip. Now your shirts won't be jealous of your teeth and their powered toothbrush.