# I want to soften my tees safely... Any idea?



## 4oclockteetime (Dec 30, 2007)

Good evening,

I've heard about various types of washes or enzyme washes that can make new tees feel softer or vintage. Is there a way to make this happen in an over the counter/done at home sort of way? I don't normally like to wash my freshly purchased/screened tees because in my mind, that makes them sort of used. I want my customers to be the first to wash them, but I have a couple of designs that would work best if the shirt felt softer and/or more vintage, but I want to keep the prices down. I can purchase softer tees (ringspun) from my vendor but that is only half way to what I want. Plus, these 100% ringspun cotton tees cost considerably more than the ones I am currently purchasing.

Thanks and take care!


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## dye hard (Feb 1, 2009)

It is interesting to know you intended to do garment washing over counter goods. I do come across this type of home garment washing method by one of my client in Cambodia. He use home washing machine to do the test on the 100% cotton printed T before sending to washing factory for bulk washing.

There are several washing chemicals available in the market, like enzymes, silicon, or both combine use. As far as I know, enzymes are more for jean washing to achieve antique and faded effects. Silicon are more for T-shirt applications (correct me if I m wrong), with warm water at about 60 degrees, more or less 1hr-2hrs washing time. 

In order to achieve the color fading effects, beside washing chemicals, some hard objects will need to be use, for instance special rough surface rubber balls or discarded golf balls will do. Because garment washing factories will use so called as bio-stone( I do not know in hell what is all about, some info provided as though they are collected from volcanoes harden lava). Since you are washing exclusively by yourself, I don't think you are going to dump the stones into your washing machines. The effects are satisfying too.


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## IShakeMyFist (Jul 14, 2012)

(Three years later...)

I ran across this post in my search for the same thing; I've got a few shirts at home that I'd like to try to make a little less sweat patchy. So far this salt bath method is the only at home wash that I've been able to find, maybe there's some way to adapt it to a larger scale?

Annie Spandex » How To Soften A New T-Shirt


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