10/09/2019

Ring Around the Collar: How to Prevent & Clean Collar Stains

We all know what it looks like: it’s that ugly brownish, grayish ring that forms on the inside of the neck collar of your dress shirt. But what is it made of? It’s a wonderful compilation of sweat build up, dead skin cells, and body oils. The neck collar of your dress shirt isn’t the only area that’s susceptible, so are your sleeve cuffs, and that’s because both these areas are direct contact points. Then add abrasion into the equation, and that leads to those soils being ground into the fibers of your shirt.

How to Minimize Collar Stains:

• Before dressing, use a washcloth with soap and scrub the area of your neck that comes in contact with the collar and allow it to completely dry before dressing. This may help reduce the amount of body oil your shirt is exposed to.
• Home wash or professionally launder your men's dress shirt after each wearing. Even if the collar doesn't look that bad, resist the temptation to wear the shirt more than once.  You're just grinding in the first layer soils deeper with the second wearing.
• Don’t let your shirt sit in the laundry too long before cleaning; stains oxidize over time, and oxidized stains are harder to remove than fresh stains.
• Pre-treat and gently hand scrub the collars. This can be time consuming, especially since you must treat the collar for both oily type stains and protein type stains, but it's worth the effort.
• Only a portion of these tips apply to ladies blouses.  It's still a good idea to remove excess oils from the back of your neck, wash or dry clean after one wearing, and always address stains as soon as possible.  A Cleaner World typically dry cleans women's blouses because they are made from less durable fabrics like silk or have a small percentage of spandex in them.  Placing a ladies blouse on a hot head press would damage the fabric.

Lucky for all of us, A Cleaner World specializes in shirt care and removing ring around the collar, so if you need help in this area, just stop by one of our locations.