How To Iron Your Clothes | Tips From Ramit Sethi

Welcome to the most important lesson of your life. How to iron. I Ram Ramit Sethi, CEO, but also Master ironing specialist. And tonight you're going to learn a skill that you frankly should have learned about 35 years ago. But there's no shame today. Well, there's no shame until I find out that you don't have an iron or you haven't turned it on in the last two. Two years. We'll discuss. We're going to start off with a very simple example of a T shirt. And I want you to notice as I'm going to open this up. What do you notice about this T shirt? Can we zoom in on this? Don't pay attention to the fabric. It's a fine T shirt. This is recommended by Cass Mack Weldon. But what do you notice about it when it comes to ironing? Half the work, 80% of the work actually is done before you ever put that iron to the fabric. And that means it's folded correctly. So I want to show you what happens when I open up these shirts. Cass, let's take a look. Cass had a few drinks earlier tonight. Okay. So I'm opening this up and you can see that it's already the edges are pressed. Okay. That this sleeve part here has already been correctly folded. So we're minimizing folds. You don't see a bunch of folds that you need to steam out later. Why? Because 80% of the work is done before you ever iron. Big insight number one. You're welcome. Alright, so this is how you iron a basic T shirt. Then we're going to talk about some ironing psychology and then I will take your elementary questions. This shirt I'm putting face down and I'm going to iron back first. Why am I doing that? Because you want to end up on the front. Because that's the most important part. That's what people see. So I'm going to do a simple, simple, quick iron here just to show you what it looks like. This could be any iron. This isn't even my iron. I like a Rowenta iron, but this is perfectly fine. Any will do. So I turn this up to high heat and I'm starting with the sleeves. And you're going to notice my hands doing a few things which I will explain later. But I'm basically starting with the sleeves and I'm going on the backside first. Right. And notice a couple of things. What do you notice? What do you notice? What am I doing with my hands? What am I doing with the iron? Does anybody see that notice also what parts of the shirt that I am touching. Okay, now I'm going quickly. I'm going to flip this over. We're now on the front side. We're going to do exactly what we did. We're doing the front. What do we got here? Some questions. Oh, no questions at all. All right. They're like, what is this show? Are you really talking about ironing? Yes, I'm fucking talking about ironing, people. First step to a rich life, get your finances in order. Second step, never before revealed today is to master the skill of ironing. Get that out of my face. I have work to do. Alright, so we finish up with the shirt. Okay, and it's done. If we were to actually do this in real time, you have a beautifully ironed T shirt. Now let's talk psychology. Give me this thing. I'm taking over this. She drank too much today. I don't iron like this. Hahaha. I don't even. You know what? Put me back. I'm the star of this show. Let's go back to me. I don't care if you guys are confused. We'll get to your questions later. Now some of you saying you don't iron like this. That is correct. That's why you're watching me teach you how to iron people. All right, so we'll come back to that later. Everybody get your iron now. If you don't have an iron, why are you watching this? Don't watch this. Turn this off. Unsubscribe from my email list. Never come back until you've purchased an iron. If you don't have an iron, pretend. What can they do to pretend they have an iron? Get something heavy. Get a bottle. Get a champagne bottle and play along when you have an iron. This is what I want to talk about. I want to talk about first of all, why nobody in America irons. Why is that? Does anybody know? I think it's because, number one, no one teaches us and number two, we actually don't think it's important. What are some of the common things you've said about irony? I don't really need to iron. I just throw it in my drawer. It's fine, it's not that wrinkled. I prefer wrinkle free fabric. Stop. That's what elementary school kids say. We're in the big leagues now. I will tell you that if you take two similarly equipped or qualified people and one of them knows how to iron a crease so sharp it will cut your face, maybe, just maybe, that person is more Likely to get the job. I'm just saying. I've heard rumors on the market. I don't know. What do I know? Common mistakes I hear, are number one. Ramit, I found a shortcut for ironing. Oh, really? You did? Let me guess. You hang it up in your shower and just run the shower for five minutes. Doesn't work. Please stop. Just. It doesn't even work. I wouldn't even bother with it. Second, Ramit, I don't use an iron. I use a steamer. Oh, you do? Okay. Steamers are okay. In an emergency situation, if you need to steam something, if you're on set, you need to steam something. Okay, but in general, no. We want to use an iron. Why? It has heat, and more importantly, it has force. Look at this. You guys see what I'm doing with my hand? When I watch people iron for the first time, this is what they do. Watch my fingers. I don't want to hurt the ironing board. I really just don't want to be mean to it. No, take it with your hand. Push down. That's what force is for. And I remember. I want to tell you a little bit about my journey to becoming an ironing master. When I would go to India, they have a. I think it's called a Tobi. And I think. And it's a neighborhood iron specialist. And they have these old charcoal irons, and they're very heavy and very old. And they sit there, you send your clothes, and they send them back to you in 10 minutes, and they're ironed perfect. And listen, I've always said at I Will Teach youh Be Rich. I love studying the best. And you see these people who have been doing it for probably generations, you're like, wow, there's actually beauty even in ironing. And so that's how I got inspired. My mom taught me. I started ironing my own clothes, then my family's clothes. Now I. One of my responsibilities in our household is I'm responsible for the iron. And I prefer it that way. So like I said, the biggest mistake people make is they just don't iron at all if you don't have any clothes. First of all, if you think you don't need ironing, you might just be mistaken. And one of the things you'll notice with people who are really well dressed, go look at any celebrities. Of course, they never have a wrinkle on. They're professionals taking care of them. But even people who work and look sharp, you'll notice that they have no wrinkles. They've chosen fabrics and they've taken care of them. That's why I care. Because I think if you're going to wear clothes and you're going to respect yourself and the other people around, you go all the way. And ironing is just a lost art. So what I want to do now is I want to show you. Actually, I want to show you pants first because this is common. So let's take a look at a pair of pants again. What do we notice about these pants already? We notice that they're already folded so that the crease is not rumpled. Right? It's folded. You can fold it in twos or threes. That's up to you. So I want to show you a quick, quick solution here for ironing pants and for men especially, a lot of men are like, I don't want to iron. Pants are really easy. They're super easy. You can't go wrong because the fabrics are thicker, so they're more forgiving. It's thick, thinner fabrics, especially women's fabrics that tend to be more delicate, like silk, things like that. This is easy. So on this iron, by the way, we'll talk a little bit about the mechanics of ironing. We have our iron and there's really only two things you need to know. You need to know that it sprays water. Can you see that water coming out? It's getting my. It's water, right? So we use that because that creates steam. Or you can just use the steam function. I do both. So I have steam coming out of here. My Rowenta at home, my iron, I named it. Don't we all name our irons? I call it the Dragon because the steam comes out way out here. So all I'm going to do with this pair of pants is I'm going to start on. Oh, excuse me. I'm going to start on the inside and I'm going to go like this. And notice the crease on these pants. I want a crease on some pants. You don't. You got a pair of casual chinos. You don't want to crease when you're going out on Saturday for brunch. Fine. But these ones are meant to be creased. Okay. Boom. Notice I'm going all the way up. Alright, I'm taking it all the way down. And I'm going over here. Now notice a couple more advanced things. What am I doing with my other hand? This is what I typically see beginners doing. La la la la la. I'm not doing anything. What am I doing? Now watch. What do you guys see? Stretching the fabric. That's going to stretch any wrinkles out. Stretch it out. Notice also this hand. What am I doing again? I'm pointing. It's pushing, creating force. Okay, so I'm stretching here, and I'm also smoothing out areas that need to be smoothed out. Watch this. This is a classic, a little bit more intermediate mistake you might make. See this crease? See this crease right here? Let's get in tight on that. We want this crease so sharp, it will cut your face. Now, this is a classic mistake. What if I take this crease and I go like this? Well, now you've done something horrific, my friends. You have really screwed up that crease. You got two creases. That's a double crease. That's a mistake. Don't ever do that. The way you prevent that. The way you prevent that is you stretch it here. And you're going on one line. One line that gives you that beautiful single crease. Come. Touch your face. Success. Now we'll just go on the outside, we'll flip it over. We'll do the same thing inside first and outside. And then all you do is just open. I'm gonna skip through here. Open it up. Wow. Got a beautiful crease.

Wait, let me zoom in on that.

Go in tight right here.

Wow.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you haven't worn a pair of crease pants since you wore Dockers to your seventh grade Sadie Hawkins dance, it's time to grow up, my friends. It's time to join the 2020 Year of Sartorial celebrations. That's what we're here to talk about. Do we have any questions so far? Am I going too fast? For the beginners in the room, aka 99% of people in America, No.

You didn't do the hand sanitizer.

Oh, sorry. I was too excited. I've broken my own rules today. I've broken my own rules. Process is meant to be followed. Okay, back at. So what have we done so far? We've done a T shirt. We've done a pair of pants. I want to just show you something a little bit more advanced, and then we can talk about questions. Okay? All right.

Someone said way too fast.

What? Oh, what, do I need to start at the beginning? You guys want to talk about fabrics, cotton? What do you want to talk about? All right, watch this. Okay, this is just for a simple polo. Cass, can you get in on this so that everybody can see? Okay. Notice what I'm doing here. 80% of the work is done before the iron ever touches the fabric. So what I'm doing here, I'm stretching it out correctly. There should be no wrinkles. Look at this. This is no good. If you iron on this, you've created more problems for yourself. So we want to do the work here. We want to stretch it out. It's very calming, actually. It's very therapeutic. Look at this. I'm finding any flaws and I'm just getting them out now. I'm quietly. You can, you know, listen to some music, put on some Sade, and, you know, it's a very. It's a beautiful time. Now watch this. I went too fast. I'm sorry. I didn't realize I needed to start at the very beginning. Okay, look where my hand is, my left hand. Cass, can you get in on this?

Yes.

We don't need to see my face anymore. This hand here, because I know that I'm going to iron and I want to stretch it a little bit. See that stretch? That's causing this to flex. Okay. For anyone who's ever done something with your face, men who have shaved your beard, you know how sometimes you go like this to stretch the skin out? Same principle here. Same principle. Okay, so what I did was I started with the sleeve. I built a beautiful crease. And I can use some steam too, or I can even spray. See that water in there? Ooh, look at that. Put that on there. Get the steam coming. You're going to get those wrinkles out even more. Okay, beautiful. Well done. I'm complimenting myself. Great job, Ravine.

Good job.

Alright, so we'll do the rest of this, but here's the trick I wanted to show you with this shirt. We have a collar. What do we do about a collar, people? Most of us. Well, most of us don't even own an iron. What am I talking about? But the people who do. I just want to show you a little bit of collar technique here. So lay out the collar. Now you. Okay, you gotta decide. Do you want a sharp crease? If so, I'm going like this. Look at that. I'm going.

Oh, wait, you folded it though.

No, this is just a normal collar. This is.

This is how then you folded the collar?

Yeah. Okay, so this is the collar, how it'd be worn. Good. We should clarify. So this is how you wear the shirt. Right. And so I'm gonna put it down. And the collar is not like this. Good point though. Cass, if you have a dress shirt, sometimes you get minor wrinkles over here. So you can Open it up first, iron this and then fold it over. Now we want to get that crease on there. Now this is more of a casual shirt. So ironing technique changes based on the type of fabric and the type of look you're going for. As I said, a casual pair of chinos, you're not going to want that tight crease on it. This, personally, if it were me, I would not go super tight here. I would just make sure I get all the basic wrinkles out. But I'm not trying to create a super hard crease here. Why? Because look at this. This is a drapey piece of fabric. Okay.

This is.

What is this theory? And you just kind of want to go over this casually. It's not a real formal polo. Okay. So for this you can choose whether or not you want to have a crease. I like a crease. That's me. But what you can see is how you use the collar in your ironing technique. Cas, I want to get some questions from the audience. I'm a little nervous about what type of questions we're going to get. You know, we've talked in the past about very sophisticated concepts regarding investment horizons and tax minimization, but. But today I really have no idea what's coming my way. What do we got?

Alright, it's a free for all today.

Oh boy.

Do you use distilled water?

Great question. Personally, in my opinion, it's overkill. 99% of the big win is having a decent iron and using it frequently. I know people talk about distilled water. I don't really care. Okay, great question.

What are you drinking?

Water. Okay, so I've seen. We've gone from a very advanced question to. This is. We have no more questions on this topic of irony.

Wait.

Next.

Why do you use a steam iron?

This is a steam iron. This just isn't my own personal iron. Otherwise I would show you the dragon. But when you're talking about a steamer, you can do that. And that is helpful, especially for women's wear. So if you have delicates, silk, some of those have lots of ruffles. Okay. There's like thousands of ruffles on a, like a skirt. It's very difficult to sit there and iron because you create more wrinkles the more you do it. So for that, a steamer is awesome. But this is a steam iron, not a steamer. And this is what the vast majority of people need.

Do you use starch?

Wow. So, okay, great question. Indians love starch. I don't know if. Well, I don't know if Americans even know what starch is. Starch gives you. It feels a bit more firm. Okay. It's a little bit stickier on you. I used to use starch a lot. Starch is really good for. If you want to have more of a structured look for your dress shirts. Starch would not work well with something like this. And this is what I wear more of now. More relaxed, more cashmere. Casual sometimes. Yeah, this is casual. So starch would be out of place. Whereas if you're doing work, shirts, starch could be great. What else?

Do you iron Cass's clothes? Yes, yes, he does. He's an iron master.

Yeah.

Let's see. Thoughts on Bitcoin and ethereum over two years.

Yeah, that's a good thing to do if you want to lose money. Now let's talk about something real. Ironing.

Wow.

What else you got? Let's go. Ironing master is in effect, not the crypto master.

How often do you iron per week on average?

Oh, maybe twice a week. Cass, can you come over here so that we can get the angle? I'm trying to improve every day here, Maybe two times a week. And by the way, I don't use an ironing board most of the time. I actually just put it on my bed. So if you don't have an ironing board, you don't need it. But you do want some kind of piece of cotton beneath it that's gonna help you and something firm.

Alright. Do you iron your clothes right out of the dryer or wait until you have a pile of clothes?

First of all, you should never have a pile of clothes. Are you kidding me? Get it out of the dryer and fold it. And folding it and getting it folded correctly is going to minimize the amount of time you have to iron. Okay. So that's awesome. If you can do it right out of the dryer, that is the best time because you have the fewest amount of wrinkles. If you can't, that's okay. My suggestion though, you should fold stuff right out of the dryer. If your clothes have been sitting in the dryer, put a wet towel in there, start the dryer again for 10 to 15 minutes, it'll steam it out. And then you take them out and fold them and fold them firmly so that all the wrinkles are gone. And then half the time you may not have to iron it, but when you do, it's going to be really easy. Okay.

Who taught you to iron your clothes?

My mom, I think behind me.

It's your blue queen?

Yeah. Behind every ironing master is an Indian or Asian mom or grandmother who has somehow down the generations, learned this from somewhere and taught us. So I'm very thankful to my mom.

Thanks, Mom. Do you iron your underwear?

Wow. I don't because I wear some kind of performance fabric, but I have ironed jeans. When I used to wear jeans, and that was not with a crease, by the way. That would be really horrific. I have ironed, I think when I had boxers one day. This is many years ago, I was like, no, this is horrific. And I pulled it out. So I've ironed some crazy things.

Okay, what else?

These questions are surprisingly good, I have to say.

Let's see. Let me look in the chat box.

I wish someone said, what do you mean you don't wear jeans? Because then I can go on a huge rant about jeans.

Oh, what material will you not iron?

Ooh, that's a good one. That's a great one. There are a couple things of Cass's that when she gives them to me, I just say, look, this is going to be impossible. We need to get it professionally done. Those would be cash. What are those fabrics, like silk? Very complex silk.

Very delicate.

Yeah. Like we're talking about skirts with 200 ruffles.

Delicate layers.

Yeah, layers. So but day to day silks, those are hard. If you have a woman's silk blouse, they're really hard because the mid. They're so delicate that the minute you do something on the back, it can cause a wrinkle on the other side. So that is a more skilled technique you need to develop.

Yeah. Why don't you wear jeans?

I decided about seven years ago, first of all, ten years ago, I said, my rich life.

Oh, shit, wait. I flipped it on accident.

Oh, that's okay. They're looking at you now. That's Our viewership is probably going up. They tuned out when they saw me with an iron. Here, let me. Come here. Hold on. Oh, it's really looking at me. Wow. This is. We got the pro level going. I don't know how to flip it, maybe. Oh, here, here.

Oh, okay.

There you go. Boom.

Oh, wow.

Steven Spielberg back in the house. Let's give Cass a round of applause, please. At next level wardrobe, I was like, cass, can you put that. Can you put that drink away? I know you did a happy hour a couple hours ago. Like, we gotta go live in a second. She was like, I'm good. Okay, so are we talking about jeans? Ten years ago, I decided my rich life is never wearing dress shoes with jeans. I just hate it. I was tired. You see in Silicon Valley, the wardrobe get up, let me wear a button down shirt with jeans and then these horrible square toed like leather dress shoes and maybe I'll put on a blazer or a vest. I was like, no. So I said, I'm never doing that. Then I said, you know what, maybe no more jeans after. And so since that day, I've never worn jeans. Watch the photos, look at the videos. Never worn them since then. Thankful.

That is true.

That is my rich life.

Okay, next question. How often do you iron your clothes?

So maybe two times a week. Some of my fabrics don't need to be ironed. Also if I'm, you know, I work from home, so if I'm really casual, I'm sitting over like this, I would push, probably not iron, but I also would take care of it so that it's not dumped in a pile. I fold it when I'm done wearing it. Okay. But if I'm, you know, if I'm going to be on zoom, which I am every day, or I'm going to go out, I would definitely be ironing some of those clothes. I think we can probably take the last question here and then I'm going to, I'll just close it up with a few final remarks.

Okay. How do you roll up your sleeves on a dress shirt?

Wow, that's actually a really good question. You know what, that's pretty complicated. You know what, if you Google how to roll up your sleeves on a.

Dresser, there's no good videos.

There's no good videos. But this is a great question. So men, if you see models, male models with their sleeves rolled up, it looks amazing. But if you try to do it on your own, it's really hard. So there's a big opportunity for somebody out there to create the killer YouTube video on how to roll up your sleeves. You can go halfway, you can go up, etc. But I'll also tell you that I don't wear a lot of dress shirts. I wear a full dress shirt maybe four times a year. That's it. So I've changed my style and you know, Cass has helped me do that. She's helped a lot of clients do that. But I decided I don't want to wear a button down shirt and a blazer for the most part. It's just not my style. And so I've been thankful to not have to do that. Okay, I want to talk about some things we covered today. This was Was this the best Fireside Chat ever? I think it might have been. Oh, you guys want to talk about money during coronavirus? No. Let's talk about my friend the iron.

Here party Friday night.

What have we learned? We've learned that this is an easy that if you are just average, you win. That's it. You just have to be average. Looking sharp, going in there, never having a wrinkle shows you respect yourself. And you've learned a technical skill. So I knew that the demand for tonight would be zero.

Yeah, it's definitely the lowest viewership we've had.

I'm gonna put the considerable marketing resources of I Will Teach youh Be Rich behind this lesson. Forget Earnable, which comes out next week. Forget our other programs. Forget it. We're only promoting my ironing course. And we're gonna create demand. I don't care what it takes. I hope my team is watching. Get the marketing engine ready. We're going full bore tomorrow, Saturday. Anyway, thank you guys for being here. We do Fireside Chats every single night. Usually one of us has had a little bit less to drink. And I don't know what we're talking about tomorrow, but I'll be here. And the topics are online, and you can follow all these on YouTube.com Ramit Sethi on Instagram Ramit, send me your topics that you want me to cover. Send me pictures of you trying to iron. I want to see it. And if you don't even have an iron, send me the first time you get your iron. I will be so proud. Thank you guys for watching. Have a good night.