How To Care For Your Gear

10 Ways to Wash, Dry and Keep Your Flannels, Shirts, Pants and Jackets Looking Good

You bought American-made for a reason.

Better fabric, solid construction, and small-batch, made in the USA production—because bringing artisan-level textile skills back to America matters. Pieces like our American Made Boca Flannel, Draftsman Twill Slub Overshirt, and Stampede Jacket are meant to be multi-season, multi-year hard-wearing wonders. They’re built to hold up and look better the longer you own them.

That only works if you take care of them the right way. It’s not about being fussy—it’s just about paying attention. Here are the Top 10 Tips for making your Made in USA clothing last longer, and look better.

1) Read Your Care/Content Tag

Every piece, by law, comes with a care/content tag, usually located on the side seam of each piece of clothing. Take the time to scan it.

We like to keep ours simple—plain English, no symbols (we always have to look up those arcane symbols too. We wanted to save you the hassle.) If the tag says cold wash, hang dry, that’s how the garment was designed to hold its shape, color, and feel over time.

At the bottom of the tag, you’ll see it: “Don’t Screw This Up!” It’s a reminder. Take a minute and follow the guidance. You already care how your clothes are made. Take care of them the same way.

2) Don’t Overwash

Most of the damage happens when you overwash your clothes.

A shirt worn to dinner, a few hours on a Zoom call, or a short stretch out often doesn’t even need to be washed. If it’s not dirty, you didn’t drip your lunch burrito on it, and it doesn’t smell, consider hanging it up to wear a second time. From your back, to the hanger (or to the back of a bedroom chair, to be realistic), and back into rotation.

If you’re on the fence, that’s your call—just think about it for a nanosecond.

Over-washing dulls color, weakens fibers, and shortens the life of the piece faster than anything else. Most people don’t realize how much wear happens in the wash itself, not in the wear.

3) Pretreat Stains First

If you find yourself with last night’s burger dripping on something, all bets are off. “The sooner the better” is your mantra for treating stains. The key is noticing, then acting on it pretty quickly, before it hits the washer, and definitely before it hits the dryer, if you’re a dryer guy.

See something? Do something. Make a quick detour to the kitchen, and work a few drops of dish soap into the spot. Be sure to cover the spot completely. Let it sit for a while (15 minutes usually works). You’re giving the detergent time to break up what’s there instead of asking the wash cycle to attempt to do it for you. If you’re a fan of those commercial spot remover sprays, and have had success using those, feel free.

4) Turn It Inside Out

Before washing, turn the garment inside out. If there’s hardware on the style (metal shank buttons, snaps, or zippers), close them all up.

These steps protect the outer surface of your piece from unnecessary friction, which is what fades and damages fabric over time. They also help the inside—the part that actually gets dirty—get more direct contact in the wash.

Easy steps, real difference.

5) Cold Water Is the Default

Cold water handles most of what you need while protecting the fabric.

It preserves color, reduces shrinkage, and keeps the structure intact. Modern detergents are built for it, so you’re not sacrificing performance.

Warm water has its place. If something is actually dirty—sweat, grime, or grease—warm helps break that up more effectively. Just keep it controlled and don’t default to it.

Hot water is where problems start. That’s what shrinks fabric, fades color, and shortens the life of the garment. (BTW, at Devium we have already hot-washed (“sanforized”) the fabric a single time before it was sewn, taking out as much of the shrinkage as possible so it fits more true to size and doesn’t pucker in weird places after its first wash.)

For most day-to-day wear, cold is the right move. Save warm for when it’s earned.

6) Use (Usually Way) Less Detergent Than Recommended

Most people use too much.

Start with about half of what the cap suggests for a normal load and adjust from there. If the clothes aren’t heavily soiled, they don’t need a full dose.

Too much detergent doesn’t rinse clean. It leaves residue in the fabric, which can make shirts feel stiff, look dull, and break down faster over time.

If something feels off coming out of the wash, it’s often not because you used too little—it’s because you used too much. Clothes coming out of the washer feel and sound a bit “crunchy”? That’s a sign that you’re using way too much detergent.

Use less and let the cycle do the work.

7) Learn Your Machine

There’s nothing normal about constantly using the “Normal” setting on the washer. In general, you don’t need to use such a long cycle (with its accompanying high spin, deep-wrinkle-inducing final cycle). It’s way more aggressive than you need on a regular basis.

Instead, use one of these settings:

• Casual
• Permanent Press
• Delicates

The names vary, but the goal is the same—a gentler wash with a medium to low spin. There’s no shame in becoming better acquainted with your wash cycle.

Spin speed matters more than most people realize. High spin pulls out more water, but it also sets wrinkles and puts more stress on the fabric. If you’re hang drying, that extra stress doesn’t help you.

Lower spin leaves the garment in better shape coming out of the wash. It may take longer to dry, but will come out with fewer wrinkles.

8) Skip the Extras

Dryer sheets (and their equally bad cousin, in-the-washer fabric softener) coat the fabric.

That coating builds up over time. It dulls the fabric surface, reduces breathability, and interferes with how the garment naturally breaks in.

On something like a flannel or overshirt, you want the fabric to age on its own terms. Skipping softeners helps that happen.

9) Take an Extra Minute to Smooth Out, then Hang (or Flat) Dry

Once the wash is done, what you do next matters.

Give the garment a few very hard shakes to start to release the twists and folds. Take just a minute to pull (gently!) on any seams that seem to have shortened up in the washer—on pants give a gentle pull to the long outside and inside side seams, and on your beloved flannels, give a gentle pull to the side seams and the front placket area (buttoning one or two buttons helps keep everything aligned).

Now quickly lay your shirt or pants on a flat surface (or do it vertically on a hanger) and smooth the wrinkles out with your hand. Hang it on a solid hanger so it holds its shape as it dries. Give it space. When clothes dry too slowly—packed together with no room to breathe—they tend to feel stiff instead of relaxed.

If you’re drying indoors and live in a humid location, some air movement helps. Outside works well too, just avoid long stretches of direct, harsh sun.

The goal is simple: let it dry at a steady, natural pace.

10) Use the Dryer Sparingly

Dryers are convenient, but can be hard on cotton.

Higher heat and overdrying weaken fibers, fade color, and set shrinkage. Over time, that’s what takes the life out of the fabric.

If you want a little softness, a few minutes on low heat is fine. After that, follow the directions above, then let it finish drying on a hanger or flat surface. Can’t be bothered, and just want to throw all your tees in the dryer? We won’t judge. Save the extra minutes for your wovens instead.

Real-World Use

A lot of this advice comes straight from our favorite r/Laundry subreddit—especially contributors like KismaiAesthetics, who is a technical wizard focusing on the details most people miss. Two rules that come up over and over: don’t use heat (the dryer) until the stain is gone. And don’t use the dryer at all on your most favorite (especially woven fabric) pieces.

If you want to go deeper on specific problems, that subreddit is a good place to look.

• If you wore it lightly, hang it up and wear it again.
• If you worked in it, wash it right.
• If you spilled something, treat it first.

The Bottom Line

This doesn’t need to be complicated. It comes down to a few habits:

• Wash less
• Treat stains early
• Use cold water (warm when it’s earned)
• Use less detergent
• Skip softeners