Most care instructions for cotton come down to four things: wash cold, wash inside out, skip the hot dryer, and take the garment out while it is still slightly damp.
Do those and cotton is close to indestructible. Cotton is stronger wet than dry, tolerates repeated washing better than almost any other fibre, and softens rather than degrades with age. Nearly all the damage people blame on washing is actually caused by drying.
The label, decoded
Care symbols are standardised, which makes them worth learning once.
| Symbol | What it means |
|---|---|
| Tub with a number | Machine wash at that temperature in Celsius, or below |
| Tub with a hand | Hand wash only |
| Tub with a bar underneath | Gentle or synthetics cycle |
| Crossed-out triangle | Do not bleach |
| Square with a circle inside | Tumble dry |
| One dot in that circle | Tumble dry on low heat |
| Crossed-out square with a circle | Do not tumble dry |
| Iron with one dot | Cool iron, up to about 110 degrees |
| Iron with two dots | Medium iron, up to about 150 degrees |
A tub marked 30 does not mean you must wash at 30. It means 30 is the ceiling, and colder is always allowed.
What temperature to wash at
Cold, at 30 degrees or below, for essentially everything. Modern detergents are enzyme-based and work perfectly well at low temperatures, and a cold wash uses a fraction of the energy.
Hot water has two real uses: sanitising bedding and towels after illness, and shifting heavy grease. Both are occasional. Routine hot washing simply fades colour and accelerates shrinkage for no cleaning benefit.
Wash a full but not packed drum. Clothes need room to move, and an overloaded machine cleans badly while abrading everything inside it.
Does cotton shrink, and by how much?
Yes, though usually less than people fear. Untreated cotton loses roughly 3 to 5 per cent, and knitted jersey can reach 8 to 10 per cent if it has not been pre-shrunk.
Nearly all of it happens on the first wash and dry. On a 73 cm body length, 4 per cent is about 3 cm, which is one size of length on most tees.
Two things drive it: heat, and tumbling. Cold washing and line drying together prevent most shrinkage on any cotton garment, pre-shrunk or not. Garments labelled pre-shrunk have had the movement taken out at the mill and will barely change.
Drying is where the damage happens
The lint in a tumble dryer filter is your clothing. Those are cotton fibres broken off by heat and mechanical tumbling, and they do not come back.
Line dry when you can. When you cannot, tumble on low and take the garment out while it is still slightly damp, then hang it to finish. That single habit prevents most shrinkage, most fibre loss, and most of the ironing.
Never dry cotton on high to bone dry, repeatedly. That is the combination that shrinks a tee a size and leaves the surface fuzzy.
Keeping dark colours dark
Turn dark garments inside out before they go in. Fading happens through abrasion of the outer surface, so protecting that surface protects the colour.
Wash new dark cotton separately for the first two or three cycles, cold, with a full-strength detergent. Dry dark colours out of direct sunlight, which bleaches faster than any wash cycle.
Skip fabric softener on cotton. It leaves a coating that reduces absorbency, which matters on towels and on any garment sold for its breathability.
Whites
Use an oxygen bleach rather than chlorine. Chlorine works quickly and weakens cotton fibres a little each time, eventually yellowing the fabric it was meant to whiten.
Wash whites together and do not let them sit damp. Most greying on white cotton is transferred dye from other garments rather than dirt.
Ironing
Cotton irons best slightly damp, on a medium to hot setting. If it has dried fully, spray it and give the water a minute to spread through the cloth.
Iron dark colours from the reverse side to avoid the shine a hot plate leaves on a flat surface. Printed graphics should always be ironed inside out.
Heavier cotton lasts longer
Fabric weight predicts durability better than price does. A heavier knit has more fibre in the same area, so it resists abrasion, pills less and holds its shape through more washes.
The Heavyweight Cotton T-Shirt is built at 250 gsm against the 140 to 180 gsm typical of a standard tee, and the Oversized 3/4-Sleeve T-Shirt in 100 per cent cotton weighs 340 g as a finished garment. Both carry the same instructions: machine wash cold with similar colours, do not bleach, tumble dry low, cool iron if needed.
Our guide to t-shirt GSM goes into what fabric weight changes about drape, opacity and how long a tee stays looking new.
Storing it
Fold knitted cotton and hang woven cotton. A hanger puts the weight of a knitted garment onto two points at the shoulder, which stretches them permanently.
Store clean and dry. Cotton put away damp mildews, and mildew stains on cellulose fibres are effectively permanent.
Organic and washed cotton
Organic cotton is the same fibre grown differently, so the care is identical. Washed or garment-dyed cotton has already been through a wet process at the mill, which is why it feels softer new and shrinks less afterwards.
Where to go next
For the other summer fabric, see can you dry clean linen shirts and linen versus cotton for summer. For synthetics and blends, see how to wash technical fabrics, and for knitwear, how to stop cashmere from pilling. Shop cotton t-shirts.