A properly cured transfer and a properly stitched design both outlast the garment they are on. When decoration fails early it is almost always heat, friction or bleach — and all three are avoidable without treating the shirt as precious.
Inside out
The single most effective habit
Cold
Wash temperature
Low
Dryer heat, or hang it
The four rules
- Turn it inside out before washing. The decoration then rubs against the inside of the garment rather than against zips, buttons and everything else in the drum.
- Wash cold. Heat is what softens a transfer adhesive and what shrinks fabric around stitching, which is where puckering comes from.
- Skip the fabric softener. It coats fibres, and on a printed transfer that coating is what edges start lifting from.
- Dry low, or hang it. The dryer does more damage than the wash, every time.
Never do these
- Bleach. It attacks the decoration and the garment color around it.
- Iron directly onto a print. If it needs pressing, turn it inside out and press the back of the design, or use a cloth.
- Dry clean embroidery on a delicate garment without asking — solvents and some threads disagree.
If something does go wrong
A transfer edge lifting within the first few washes is a curing problem, not a care problem, and that is on us — tell us and we will replace it. Cracking across the whole design after two years of hot washes is wear, and it is what the rules above are for.
