How to wash heavyweight cotton (without wrecking the print)

Heavyweight cotton is the whole point of a LODE tee — it's what gives the fabric its weight, its drape, and the way it softens instead of thinning out over time. Treat it right and it gets better with every wash. Here's how.

Before the first wash

New heavyweight cotton can shed a small amount of loose fiber in its first cycle. That's normal. Wash it on its own or with similar dark colors the first time.

Washing

• Turn the piece inside out. This protects the print from direct friction against zippers, buttons, and other fabric.
• Wash cold. Hot water is the fastest way to fade a print and shrink heavyweight cotton unevenly.
• Use a normal or gentle cycle — skip the heavy-duty setting, which is harder on prints than it needs to be for cotton this sturdy.
• Skip the fabric softener. It coats the fibers and actually works against the natural softening heavyweight cotton does on its own over time.

Drying

Tumble dry low, or hang dry if you want the print to last as long as physically possible. High heat is the number one cause of prints cracking over time — low and slow wins here.

Ironing

If you need to, iron inside out and never directly on the print. A cool iron on the plain cotton side is safe; direct heat on the graphic itself isn't.

The short version

Cold wash, inside out, low heat dry, no fabric softener, never iron the print directly. Do that and the piece will outlast the trend it was made for.