Ironing
Heat, moisture and pressure applied together. Two of them are useful and the third is what makes a wool sweater permanently shiny.
In detail
Ironing works by softening the hydrogen bonds within a fibre with heat and moisture so it can be reset flat, and pressure is only there to hold the shape while that happens. Reading it that way explains the wool trade's guidance, which is the most precise ironing instruction in this register. Use the wool, medium or two-dot setting. Use moisture deliberately — spray the garment lightly with water first, or use the steam function. Then two prohibitions, both describing permanent changes rather than accidents: do not apply heavy pressure, because it makes the surface of the sweater shiny, which is a burnishing of the fibre surface rather than a heat burn; and never leave the iron standing on the garment for any length of time, because it scorches. The lesson generalises. Pressing harder is the wrong lever, and adding moisture is the right one. The standing rule that governs all of it is the care label: an article whose label says do not iron must not be ironed, and the symbol is a ceiling on severity rather than a suggestion. Synthetic fibres melt rather than scorching, which is a different failure and one no amount of care recovers.
Why
- Ironing is explained by How care labels work
- Ironing is explained by Gloss and light scattering
- Ironing is explained by Thermal shock
Sources for this page
Sources
The Woolmark Company · Trade or professional body
Relied on for: That the setting is wool, medium or two dots, that the garment is sprayed with a little water or steamed, that heavy pressure makes the surface shiny by burnishing the fibre, that the iron must never be left standing on the garment because it scorches, and that a do-not-iron label governs. (states this directly)
Verification: a person has read the passage relied on.
Read on — The whole page: setting, moisture, pressure and scorching. Supports the claim as stated. Sprint 7 recorded that no ironing guidance could be attributed to the wool body because the page then read gave none. That was correct about that page and is now superseded: a dedicated ironing page exists and has been read.
GINETEX, The International Association for Textile Care Labelling · Standards body
Relied on for: That the ironing symbols indicate the maximum severity of treatment the article can withstand. (states this directly)
Verification: a person has read the passage relied on.
Read on — Sprint 28 read all thirty pages: the fold-out table on pages 1-2, then Basic Principles, Washing, Bleaching, Drying, Ironing, Professional Textile Care and Labelling on pages 6-24. Earlier sprints had read the fold-out table only. Supports a wider statement — our claim was widened. The register held this as a one-page symbol table for four sprints. It is a thirty-page booklet, and the pages nobody had opened carry the principles rather than the pictures: a label is set by the garment's most sensitive COMPONENT, not its fibre; following it guarantees no damage and guarantees nothing about stain removal; milder is always permitted; and the bleaching triangle governs ordinary detergent choice, because universal detergents contain oxygen bleach. Two whole treatment families — natural drying and professional textile care — become science concepts on it.
Last reviewed by a person on .