How To Keep Your Clothes Looking New Video / 5 Wardrobe Maintenance Mistakes To AVOID

Guys, I get e-mails all the time, guys telling me about their horror stories. “I took a pair of wool trousers, Antonio and I threw them into the dryer and they are now two sizes too small. Can you help me?” And the answer, unfortunately, is no, you’re probably need to donate those.

I had another guy bought a $200 shirt and he spilled salad on it. The oil in the salad actually got into the shirt.

He washed it, threw it in the dryer, and then when he hung it up later that night, he realized that stain was still there. He didn’t spot check it, he didn’t spot clean it, and therefore he just ruined a $200 shirt.

And, guys, that’s what this is all about is I don’t want you to go out there and ruin your clothing.

Now, guys, I created a free 81-page eBook for you where I talk about dry cleaning, sewing on a button, ironing, you know, taking care of your clothing. I’ve got it for you right here. Go grab that free eBook.

But, what I want you to remember what I want you to take away from this video is that there are proper ways to take care of your clothing.

When you do that it’s going to last longer, it looks better, and you feel better and you get more value out of your investment and, guys, at the end of the day that is going to help you become a sharper dressed man.

Are you ready? Let’s get into the point.

Mistake #1 Overwashing Your Clothes

So, mistake number one I see men make is that they over wash their clothing. And the big issue here is that they just throw it in the wash after a wear.

Now, after one wear whether it was 30 minutes or 30 hours and I know some of you guys have take a 24-hour shift, you sweat you work hard in that clothing, in that case, yes, wash that clothing. Always wash your underwear after one wear. Wash your undershirts. Those things are close to your body, but shirts – dress shirts, sports jackets, maybe other types of jackets, jeans, how often should you wash those?

The answer is you wash clothing when it’s dirty. And, that really depends on how hard you wear it. So, if you are wearing a suit all the time, you’re a consultant in Houston, Texas going in and out of, you know, and it’s the summer, you’re sweating when you’re outside and you come back in and you cool off, then you go back out and you sweat, but it’s something that, hey, you don’t want to smell, you’re in and around people and you probably are going to send that suit to get washed maybe once a week, once every two weeks.

If you have a position though that you wear the jacket sparingly, you keep it in a closet there at work and you throw it on maybe, I don’t know maybe a dozen times for meetings throughout the month, you could probably get away with six months before taking that out for cleaning. You can smell it, you know, make sure, but you don’t want to send something off and get it cleaned, you want it — because here’s the deal is when you run it through the wash, when you send it off to the drycleaners you have the chance that it can be damaged that it can be lost.

But, also, water, you know, with detergent or going through the drycleaning all the solvents they use, it takes away a little bit of the life of the clothing and eventually it will start to fade it will start to fall apart and you’ve only got so many times that you can run it through. So, think about, can you spot clean? If it’s a dress shirt, you know, is it something you can just clean in the cuffs, clean back in the collar apply a stain remover, use a little bit of a toothbrush, maybe hand wash your high quality clothing. The key point, try to wash as little as possible, only when the clothing is dirty.

Mistake #2 Overusing The Dryer

Mistake number two. Overusing the dryer. So, there’s a couple of things about the dryer that make it dangerous. One is it’s physically throwing that clothing around and it can get tangled up in other clothing stretch and basically rip so you can have damage physically that happens in the dryer.

The other one is going to be the heat. So the heat causes cotton causes other materials to shrink just a bit and can overtime as they shrink is they expand, it can actually very quickly age the clothing.

And, have you ever noticed the lint catcher in the dryer? Where do you think all that lint comes from? It comes from the clothing. So, know that as it’s stripping out as it’s tearing out a little bit of that, you are taking away a life, So, very similar to when I talk about with the washing machine except even more so because of the heat.

Also, with the dryer it’s got to be really careful, I talked about it at the very beginning, but you do not want to put anything in the dryer that has a little bit of a stain left. When you do that you’re going to set the stain and it’s going to be almost impossible to take out.

Mistake #3 Misusing Irons and Streamers

Mistake number three is that you are misusing irons and steamers. When you apply a hot iron directly to clothing, if you burn it, if you cause it to shrink up, and if you damage it, there is no way to undamaged it.

So, what you want to do first off is always start at a lower setting, then what you know like especially if it’s a blend shirt, unless a 50% cotton and 50% polyester, well, you treat it as a polyester shirt. You don’t knock it all the way up to linen which is usually the number 7, the really high setting and just see what happens.

Another thing that you can do when you’re ironing is especially if you’re at a hotel, have you ever noticed if you start using a hotel iron and it starts leaving rust stains? Some people aren’t cleaning those things you got to be really careful with them. But, I like to if I’m going to use the hotel iron, I always like I just said keep the setting a little bit low, but I iron it inside out.

But, the key point to understand is when you apply that heat, you are going to, you know, you’re really increasing the chance of damage. So, look to buy a better iron. I’ve got certain irons in my free eBook, guys, I will recommend, but these irons you want to make sure it’s  got a really solid base plate, it maintains a steady temperature and it doesn’t go to an extreme or it doesn’t drop and it  gets a good job done.

Now, steamers I sort of talked about it, not everyone has a steamer. A lot of irons can also act as steamers, but I’m talking about dedicated steamers here. The thing I love about steamers is they’re less likely to damage clothing. The temperature just isn’t going to be as high as it will on an iron, but the problem with steamers as a lot of people apply them on the jackets and they do it improperly and they end up blowing the seams.

So, seams are basically where two pieces of material connect and they’re often pressed and held flat. When you go ahead and you just steam those seams, oftentimes it can cause them to basically soften up and all of a sudden, the jacket starts to lose its shape.

So, be very careful with the steamers especially if you’re working on a jacket or, you know, trousers or pretty good shirts, I do recommend using a steamer. It’s not going to get as crisp of a look maybe as an iron, but for doing touch ups, it’s a lot better and less likely to damage.

Now, you could also use an iron especially if it has a steam function. And what you want to look for as on the face of the iron, look for all the number of holes that it has on the face of the iron, oftentimes that’s going to indicate and you’ll see it on the higher quality irons that they actually can be used as a steamer.

Mistake #4 Not Fixing Clothing

Mistake number four is not fixing clothing. By putting that off what’s going to happen is it’s going to be a more expensive fix later. Simple example sewing on a button. Now, oftentimes on a shirt you’re going to see a button starting to come off and you’re like, oh, I’ll just wait until it falls off.

The problem with that is you end up losing the button and unless you’ve got an extra, you know, spare here or there or you’re going to have to send it off to cleaners and they’re going to try to match one. But, the point is, you could have once a week just set your clothing aside and deal with the minor repairs.

Another thing you want to look at is tears in the clothing. Tears don’t miraculously get smaller. When you have a small tear especially or you’ve got muff damage. If it’s smaller than a dime smaller than a quarter, some of that is repairable, but once it starts to get bigger, all of a sudden you can’t patch it. The actual integrity of the clothing starts to fall and you’re not going to be able to fix you’re going to actually have to replace the clothing. So what’s easier?

And if you are so lazy that you don’t want to do it yourself, then this is when you, yes, you want to take it to the cleaners.  A lot of cleaners they’ve got minor repairs, it will cost you $5 for a button you know, but I will definitely go grab my eBook, I show you how to sew on a button right in the eBook. But, guys, little things like this, they don’t get better with time.

Mistake #5 Not Addressing Stains ASAP

Mistake number five is not addressing stains ASAP. So, guys understand if you leave a stain if you leave barbecue sauce, catsup, mustard, any of the stuff that you get on your shirt you get on your jacket, if you leave it there, the stain can begin to set and then it can actually enter the fiber and it’s going to be almost impossible to get out.

So, immediately the best thing that you can do with the stain is basically run it through water. What you do not want to do is don’t expose it to heat and don’t expose it to pressure. Those are the things you don’t want to do.

So, if you’re away from your home, immediately you can take it and run it under water and try to get out as much as possible and this is pretty much for any stain. Cold water is going to be best, again, don’t expose to heat. But, if you’re at home, you can run water through it, then you can maybe take the shirt off.

You should have a stain remover. You want to apply that immediately and then, within 12 to 24 hours, you want to wash it. I would recommend washing it sooner than later because sometimes you’ll have to apply the stain remover multiple times.

Guys, that is it. Let me know in the comments what are – what in your opinion are the biggest mistakes men are making when it comes to clothing that is destroying their clothing. And like I said, go grab the eBook, I made it here free, 81 pages, solid information so you can take care of your investment which is your wardrobe and so that you can dress better, you can start to become the man you know yourself to be.