For someone who hates ironing, I definitely love sabotaging myself. If an item of clothing wrinkles or crinkles, I’ve probably got about ten of them: silk blouses, white shirts, infinitely crinkled linen shorts. Am I the only one who sees a silky cream top and thinks, ‘I’ll probably wear it once because I’ll never be arsed to iron it, but it’ll be SO WORTH IT?’
It’s not that I don’t know how to iron, but like many people, I’m better at ironing wrinkles in as opposed to ironing them out. And no matter how many times I’ve watched this amazing Japanese ironing video, I will never become a laundry ninja. So I’ve developed a foolproof guide to ironing without ever going near an actual iron.
The most common tactic is hanging your clothes in your bathroom and taking a very long and hot shower so the steam irons the wrinkles out. You’re looking at 15 to 20 minutes of luxurious shower time before this starts working. Then you can towel off, put on a face mask and high-five yourself for being such an efficient, multi-tasking adult.
Press the damp towel down on your wrinkled clothes, moistening the area and smoothing with your hands
The quick and dirty way of making sure clothes come out straight is just hanging them up the minute they come out of the laundry. I know, I know – sometimes even getting your clothes out of the washer can be a challenge. One of my housemates at uni once left her wet clothes in the machine for so long that mould set in; we all thought someone left cheese in the laundry room. But let’s face it: nobody wants to wear a mouldy, smelly and wrinkled denim shirt. Just hang them and allow to air dry, like a civilised human being.
My American friend raves about wrinkle reducer sprays (bear in mind she’s also the kind of laundry fanatic who carries around a Magic Eraser in her purse), but they’re kind of pricey in Britain. OK, I exaggerate: like a tenner. You can basically replicate the same results with a damp towel and a hairdryer. Press the towel down on your wrinkled clothes, dampening the area and smoothing with your hands. If it’s still wrinkled, point your hairdryer at it for a couple of minutes. If you’ve got a spray bottle, you can mist the garment with water and go over with the hairdryer.
Wipe the ceramic clamp bit of your hair straighteners clean, put the heat setting on low and use it to iron wrinkles in hard-to-reach areas
What about your tricky areas like your collars or shirt sleeves? There’s a reason hair straighteners are also called flat irons. Wipe the ceramic clamp bit clean of any hair products, put the heat setting on low and use it to iron wrinkles in hard-to-reach areas like between the buttonholes. Warning: This isn’t advisable on silk, unless you want to burn a hole in your camisole.
If you want to go more high-tech and you’re feeling flash, you can buy a garment steamer like this one. Basically, these gizmos are a fashion stylist’s dirty little secret: you just wave the steaming nozzle over your clothes and the wrinkles literally vanish. It is also incredibly mindless fun and is what they use in clothes stores to iron out all the creases made by grubby shopppers. Isn’t technology magic? Now you’ll never turn up to work in a creased shirt again.
Follow Zing on Twitter @misszing
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.