Using the Hotel’s Iron? Test It on a Towel First
The last thing you need before an important meeting is a clothing disaster. Here’s how to spot-check that hotel iron before it ruins your clothes.
When something goes wrong with ironing, it usually goes spectacularly wrong, and you end up with a molten-plastic, iron-shaped brand on the back of your shirt.
With hotel irons, though, there’s an extra variable at play—all the people who stayed there before you and used and abused the iron in their own special ways.
To avoid a surprise, like an iron full of mildewy water, chunky hard water deposits, or something even worse, iron a hotel towel first.
Dump out any old stale water in the iron first, and then refresh the reservoir with clean water. Let the iron heat up, switch it to the cotton setting, and then iron the towel while you pump the steam button.
If the towel isn’t covered in chunks of water deposits and doesn’t smell like the bottom of a gym locker, then it’s ready for your business attire. If it doesn’t look so great, you’ve just saved yourself from ironing funky gunk right onto the shirt you’re wearing to this afternoon’s presentation.