The Clever Trick That Makes Ironing Clothes With Buttons A Breeze

Nothing elevates an item of clothing quite like a trip to the ironing board. Without wrinkles, shirts, pants, and dresses look fresher and newer, and overall, you will look more put-together when wearing them. Ironing not only smooths wrinkles; it can also make your clothing last longer, remove lingering odors, and help get rid of germs and mold on the garment. Even if you already know all of this, though, you still may avoid ironing your laundry regularly because the process can be time-consuming, and there are all kinds of mistakes you can make that can ruin the look of your clothes. If you absolutely detest ironing, you have probably been using your iron wrong all along. In the frustratingly difficult areas to iron, such as around buttons, there is a very simple hack that can make the process much easier, and it involves an item you almost certainly already have at home: a towel.

For this hack, all you need to do is lay a towel on top of your ironing board before placing your clothing item so that the buttons face down. The towel provides cushioning that allows you to run the iron over the backside of the buttons easily, smoothing out creases without having to maneuver around button obstacles. This makes getting a crisp button-down shirt much easier, and it has some surprising advantages beyond just avoiding snagging. However, if you decide to give it a try, there are a few things to look out for when choosing iron settings so that you do not accidentally cause damage to your clothes.

Aside from getting to iron more efficiently without navigating around pesky buttons, ironing on the inside of a shirt, as you need to do for this method, also helps reduce the likelihood of an ironing mishap that can ruin the look of your clothes. When you iron on the exterior of your clothing, you risk singeing the fabric and getting visible scorch marks. You can learn how to remove iron marks from clothes, but the process will be even more time-consuming and, in some cases, ineffective. If you singe the fabric on the inside of a shirt, though, it can still be worn immediately, and the shirt will not be ruined if you cannot remove the scorch mark. Of course, you want to avoid getting iron marks on clothes in general, so choosing the right temperature setting is important.

When trying out this hack for the first time on a shirt, you should still use caution around the buttons. The thread securing the buttons to the shirt could be a different material than the shirt itself, and using the wrong heat setting over the threads could damage them. Cotton and polyester threads are the most common types, and while cotton does well with high heat settings, polyester does not. Also, plastic buttons can melt under high heat. The lack of direct contact helps, but make sure you do not linger over the buttons to reduce risk as well. Finally, check out some ironing tips Martha Stewart lives by for crisp laundry linens to get the best results for the rest of the shirt.