Shirts Questions

Shirts

“I love to golf and want to look sharp on the course. What do you suggest?”

A. A great choice for golf attire is a smart casual polo shirt. Here are a few tips to help you get the most out of your golf shirts and keep them looking good at the end of the season.

Think comfort and style. Choose a fabric that breathes easily, like cotton, and a fit that allows you to comfortably move through a full swing.

Avoid dark colors. Long exposure to sun on a nice day on the fairway can ‘bleach’ out the dark hues in your golf shirt. While the sun can take its toll on lighter colors, the damage is more apparent on darker garments.

Don’t delay cleaning or hand laundering your shirts after a day of golf to prevent permanent staining. Perspiration, deodorants and tree sap can interact with the dyes in your shirt and cause color changes and discoloration.

Remember, perspiration stains may not appear right away.

As the damp area dries, it leaves an invisible stain that will darken and harden with time, weakening a garment’s fabric.

Apply suntan lotion and let it be fully absorbed into your skin before putting on your shirt or shorts. When lotions come into contact with your clothes, they can cause discoloration.

“One of my favorite pinstriped shirts is about two years old and it looks as if bleach were spilled on it. What caused the loss of color?”

A. If you examine the shirt closely, you will probably find that the colored pinstripe yarns are missing, leaving a skeletal framework of the white yarns. The colored yarns are dyed with fiber-reactive or sulfur-based dyes that can degrade with repeated laundering. As the shirt nears its life expectancy, the colored yarns can simply wash away. While there are many factors that affect the useful life of a shirt, the average shirt begins to show signs of wear at 35 to 50 washings.