Preshrunk

I’ll probably catch a bunch of shit for this, but the instructions for this week’s This Old T-Shirt are from YM. Yeah, the teen girl’s magazine. Quit laughing. It’s not like I read it or anything, honest. Seriously, shut up.

I would have reprinted them as they appeared in the magazine, but I decided to see how the instructions stacked up in the real world. After checking over some forums, I found plenty of people who messed up their tees by following the instructions to the letter. A lot of folks turned their shirts white after soaking them in regular bleach for two days. Others crowed over how using coarse grit sandpaper chewed screenprinting and iron-ons off. So by taking the best bits out of all the suggested modifications to the instructions, I feel that we’ve cooked up a more comprehensive How To.

The only problem is, we haven’t had any time to test the instructions. Since I only added suggestions from forums that garnered positive results, you should be okay. We advise that you try these instructions on a shirt from the thrift store before you try to rough up the Ramones tee you just spent $20 on.

Standard Fade

1. Soak shirt in a solution of 8 cups of water and 1 1/2 cups of salt for 3 days. To make a solution, bring the water to a boil and stir in the salt. Let the solution cool before soaking your shirt, or your shirt may shrink.
2. After 3 days, wring your shirt out and give it a quick interior and exterior rubdown with extra or super fine grit sandpaper. Tread lighly over any silkscreening or iron-ons, unless you’re going for that look.
3. Hang your shirt to dry in sun. If you live in a place where there is no sun, consider moving.
4. Give the shirt a quick rinse and wring in your sink. Salt’s really not that good for your washing machine.
5. Wash and dry your shirt as you normally do. We suggest you don’t throw any additional clothes in the load unless you’re adventurous. Heaven forbid there’s any collateral damage.

Industral Strength Fade*

1. Soak shirt in a mixture of 6 cups water, 2 cups color safe bleach and 1/2 cup salt for 2 days. To make this particular mixture, heat the water and stir in the salt until it has disolved. Let the water return to room temperature and mix in the color safe bleach.
2. After 2 days, pull your shirt out of the mixture and immedeatley throw it into your washer. Wash and dry your shirt as you normally would. As we suggested for the Standard Fade, it may be a good idea to let your shirt fly solo on this load.

* Please note that the industrial strength fade is only suggested on a 50/50 cotton/poly blend. Bleach will weaken the cellulosic fibers on your shirt, so please don’t leave the shirt in too long. As with any bleach, it is advised that you check for color fastness as per the instructions on the container before using the above method.

Keep in mind that Preshrunk is not responsible for any shirts that you happen to hose beyond all belief. If they turn out awesome, we’d appreciate any props that you send our way. Reguardless of how it went, we need some feedback to dial the instructions in even further. Cheers!