If you just bought one of our Funny Mule Shirts, congratulations: you now own one of the most beloved blanks in the entire t-shirt industry. The Comfort Colors 1717 has a cult following for a reason, and once you understand how it's made, the care instructions practically explain themselves.
This guide covers exactly how to wash, dry, and store your 1717 so it keeps that broken-in softness and your design stays sharp for years, plus a quick look at why this particular shirt became the favorite of designers, screen printers, and t-shirt collectors everywhere.
What Makes the Comfort Colors 1717 Different
Before we get into care instructions, it helps to know what you're actually wearing. The 1717 is a 6.1 ounce, 100% ring spun cotton tee, which puts it firmly in heavyweight territory compared to the thinner 4 to 5 ounce shirts most fast fashion brands use. Ring spun cotton means the fibers are twisted tighter during spinning, which creates a smoother, stronger, softer yarn than cheaper open end cotton.
The bigger difference is the garment dyeing process. Most t-shirts are dyed as raw fabric or yarn before they're ever cut and sewn. Comfort Colors does it backwards: they sew the shirt first, then dye and soft wash the finished garment. That single change is responsible for almost everything people love about this shirt.
Because the dyeing and washing happen after construction, the shirt arrives pre-shrunk, which is why you'll see almost no shrinkage even after repeated home washing. It's also why every shirt has that slightly irregular, lived-in look and soft hand feel right out of the bag, with no breaking-in period required. Garment dyeing does mean you should expect mild shade variation from shirt to shirt and even within a single dye lot. That's not a defect. It's the process working as intended, and it's part of why no two 1717s ever look quite identical.
Care Instructions: The Short Version
If you only remember one paragraph from this whole post, make it this one.
- Turn the shirt inside out
- Wash it in cold water on a gentle cycle
- Skip the bleach and fabric softener
- Either air dry it or tumble dry on low.
That's it. Follow those four steps and your shirt and your print will both outlast almost anything else in your closet.
Washing: Step by Step
Turn it inside out first. This is the single most important habit for anyone wearing a printed tee, and it matters even more on garment-dyed cotton. Washing inside out reduces the friction between your print and the rest of the laundry load, and it protects the dye-rich fabric surface from pilling and abrasion.
Use cold water. Hot water is the fastest way to fade a garment-dyed color and stress any screen print, vinyl, or DTG ink on the shirt. Cold water (around 30°C or under) protects both the pigment and the print, and it also happens to be better for the environment and your energy bill.
Choose a gentle or normal cycle, not heavy duty or "sanitize." Heavyweight cotton can handle a normal cycle fine, but aggressive agitation over time leads to more pilling and faster fading on pigment dyed colors specifically.
Skip the bleach, always. Comfort Colors uses two different dye processes across its color range: pigment dyed and reactive dyed. Pigment dyed shades (most of the trendy, earthy, vintage colors) sit on the surface of the fiber rather than penetrating it, which is exactly what creates that soft, broken-in look. Bleach strips pigment dye almost instantly and unevenly. Even on reactive dyed colors, bleach will dull the finish over time.
Go light on detergent and skip fabric softener. A small amount of a mild detergent is all heavyweight cotton needs. Fabric softener coats the fibers in a waxy residue that actually interferes with how soft ring spun cotton already feels, and it can make printed designs feel stiffer or cause certain inks to release from the fabric faster.
Drying: What Actually Matters
Air drying is the gold standard for any printed garment, full stop. Hanging or laying the shirt flat preserves the print, keeps the fabric's texture intact, and adds zero risk to the garment dye.
If you need the dryer, tumble dry on low heat and pull the shirt out while it's still slightly damp. High heat is where most printed t-shirts actually fail. It can crack vinyl, cause certain inks to scorch or discolor, and in the case of neon and optical brightener colors on Comfort Colors specifically, the fabric itself is heat reactive. Manufacturer guidance for those colors recommends keeping fabric temperature under roughly 320°F during any heat exposure, which is also why printers are careful with flash and dryer settings on neon shirts. Translated to home laundry, that just means: low heat, every time, no exceptions.
Never iron directly on a printed design. If you must touch up wrinkles, iron inside out on low heat or place a thin cloth between the iron and the print.
Quick Reference: Comfort Colors 1717 Care Card
| Do | Avoid |
|---|---|
| Wash inside out | Bleach |
| Cold water | Hot water |
| Gentle or normal cycle | Heavy duty cycle |
| Mild detergent, small amount | Fabric softener |
| Air dry or tumble dry low | High heat drying |
| Iron inside out, low heat | Ironing directly on the print |
Why Comfort Colors 1717 Shirts Have Such a Devoted Following
The care instructions matter more once you understand why people seek this exact blank out by name, rather than just buying whatever blank shirt is cheapest.
The fabric weight feels substantial. At 6.1 ounces, this is genuinely one of the heaviest tees widely available in the print industry. It doesn't feel disposable. It has drape and structure that thinner shirts simply can't match, which is a big part of why it reads as a premium product even at an accessible price point, and why it holds up to the kind of daily wear a blue-collar workday or a weekend job around the house tends to put on a shirt.
It's soft from the very first wear. Because the garment dye and soft washing happen after the shirt is sewn, there's no scratchy, stiff, fresh-off-the-shelf phase that most cotton tees go through. It already feels like a shirt you've owned for two years, which is exactly why it's become the go-to for dad tees and the kind of shirt you reach for without thinking, whether that's heading out to the lake to fish or just running errands on a Saturday.
The color palette is genuinely unusual. Comfort Colors offers dozens of shades inspired by natural, earthy tones, things like crimson, khaki, washed denim, and moss, that you rarely see from other major blank brands. The vintage, slightly faded character of the pigment dyes gives every color a depth that a flat, uniform-dyed shirt can't replicate, and those earthy tones happen to fit right in for hunting, fishing, and outdoors crowds who want a shirt that looks at home outside, not just on a hanger.
The relaxed, tubular fit is on trend. The shirt is constructed without side seams, which keeps its boxy, vintage silhouette intact wash after wash. That fit happens to align perfectly with the oversized, retro aesthetic that's been dominating streetwear and casual fashion for several years now, while still giving enough room to move that it works just as well for sports tees and team gear as it does for a casual outfit.
It's a print shop favorite for technical reasons too. The 100% ring spun cotton face gives screen printing, DTG, and heat transfer designs a smooth, even surface to print on, which means crisper detail and better ink lay than you'd get on rougher, blended, or open-end cotton fabrics, whether the design is a one-off hunting camp joke or a full run of dad tees for Father's Day.
It barely shrinks. For anyone who has ordered shirts in bulk for a brand, a team, or an event, predictable sizing after washing is a genuinely big deal. The pre-shrinking built into the garment dye process means the size someone orders is very close to the size they'll still be wearing after a dozen washes, which matters whether you're outfitting a softball team, a fishing tournament, or a job site crew.
Put all of that together, heavyweight feel, immediate softness, unique colorway, flattering relaxed fit, excellent printability, and minimal shrinkage, and it's easy to see why the Comfort Colors 1717 has become the default choice for small apparel brands, bands, college organizations, and independent designers, not to mention outdoorsmen, blue-collar workers, sports teams, and dads everywhere, who want their shirt to feel like more than a shirt.
The Bottom Line
A Comfort Colors 1717 is built to last if you treat it the way the fabric was designed to be treated: cold water, inside out, no bleach, no fabric softener, low heat. Do that consistently and you'll watch the shirt get even softer over time without losing the print or the color depth that made you want it in the first place.
Got a Comfort Colors 1717 with one of our designs on it? We'd love to see how it's holding up. Tag us in your next wash day photo.
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