Will my custom shirt shrink? Cotton versus blends

Cotton shrinks because of how it is made. Spinning and knitting stretch the fibres under tension, and the first time heat and water relax them they return toward their natural length. This is normal, it happens once, and it is largely preventable.

How much, by blank

Rough numbers from our shelf, measuring length after a hot wash and a hot tumble dry — which is the worst case rather than what we would recommend:

• Ring-spun cotton tees such as the Next Level 3600 and Bella+Canvas 3001 lose around half an inch in length and very little in width. Pre-shrunk, and it shows.
• Gildan Softstyle behaves similarly, perhaps slightly worse.
• Gildan Ultra Cotton heavyweight can go up to around three quarters of an inch, because there is more cotton in it to relax.
• Comfort Colors garment-dyed moves least of the lot in practice, since the garment was already dyed and washed as a finished shirt, which means the process shrank it before you ever got it.
• 50/50 blends move least of all. Polyester does not shrink, so a half-polyester shirt can only shrink half as much.

Width changes less than length on knitted tees, which is why a shrunk shirt feels shorter rather than tighter.

How to prevent it

Cold wash and no tumble dryer. That is the whole method.

The dryer does more than the wash. Sustained heat in a tumble dryer is the main cause of shrinkage, and a cold-washed, line-dried cotton tee may lose nothing measurable at all over its life. Our washing guide says the same thing for the sake of the print, which is convenient — the care that protects the printing also protects the fit.

Ordering around it

Do not size up as a reflex. Ring-spun tees are pre-shrunk and a size up to compensate for half an inch leaves you with a shirt that is a size too big in the shoulders, which no wash will fix.

Two situations do justify sizing up. Heavyweight 100% cotton like the Gildan Ultra, going to somebody who tumble dries everything on hot. And a shirt that is already a close fit on the wearer, where half an inch of length is the difference between tucked and untucked.

For a group order where you cannot control anyone's laundry, order the measured size and send the care instructions with the shirts. That works better than trying to anticipate twenty people's dryers.

It happens once

Worth saying clearly: shrinkage is not cumulative. A cotton shirt relaxes in the first hot cycle or two and then stays where it is. A shirt that has been washed hot ten times is not smaller than it was after the second wash.

If a shirt seems to keep shrinking, something else is going on — usually a hot dryer slowly felting the fibres, which changes the hand of the fabric as well as the size.

Sizes we stock

Unisex S to 2XL. Above that we do not hold stock in the usual cuts, so ask before ordering. Measurements for each blank are on the product pages, and the comparison page lines up the weights and dimensions if you want to check a specific body length before committing to fifty shirts.

Measure a shirt somebody already owns and likes. It is a better guide than any chart, including ours.