Million Dollar Idea number 003
Today, I cleaned the hell out of my place, and that includes ironing shirts with my new iron. I stopped taking shirts to the cleaners, because I consider it a pain in the butt to take just one or two to the cleaners but no problem to wash one or two myself. Also, I get paranoid about how they clean them, especially ironing. I suppose I could ask what they do.
Anyway, the Million Dollar Idea: someone needs to found an Ironing Academy. I don't really know the best way to iron things, and I sort of make it up as I go along. I realize that this doesn't make much sense in the context of paranoia about damage to my clothes. About a hundred years ago, I think they had Ironing Academy, but they called it "having two X chromosomes" or something. I thank progress that today no one has to learn to iron if she doesn't want to, but my ass wants to learn and I can't. If I got grades and comments on my ironing technique, I think I'd learn pretty fast.
B+: If you iron certain parts last, you'll avoid fucking them up when you move on to some other part. D: Linen requires high heat, dimwit. Learn to read the dial on your iron. A-: Good, but little attention to detail. Work on the pockets. C-: You did nothing but press other wrinkles into that shirt. C: When you iron over buttons under the cloth, you leave little shiny spots. F: Do you recognize that smell? That's you ruining the shirt and failing this course.
By the way, when a garment tag says "cool iron", does it mean don't turn the heat on at all? Or does it mean use low heat? The FTC provides a little help but doesn't answer my question completely.
Submitted by
nathan
at 6/27/2004 3:01:10 PM- Thanks for the info. That air-blower thing looks impressive. Do professional cleaners use machines like that?
The shirt in question says "dry flat, cool iron if necessary." It's all cotton, so maybe they just don't want me to crank the iron to the cotton setting right off the bat. In other textile news, I found out that I own a pair of pants with two care tags: one that says wash warm, and one that says wash cold. I get the feeling that the manufacturers just make this stuff up to mess with us.
Perhaps you need one of these: http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/buzz/archives/002779.html
Cool iron. My Rowenta is Very Cool. I would even go so far as to call it The Shiznit, but only if no one is listening. Actually, Cool Iron means the Lowest Possible setting. Most times, when you follow this instruction, you see absolutely no results. You then should move the gauge up click by click until you see your wrinkles fading.
I have no idea what I'm talking about. Don't trust me.