How to choose a promotional t-shirt

Within the world of advertising and promotional gifts, the shirt has always been one of the most used products and yet there is great ignorance when it comes to looking at or important. There are several factors that must be taken into account when choosing promotional tshirts, and yet the only value is the weight of it.

From my experience I know that when assessing a textile garment, shirt, polo, sweatshirt or fleece, the client usually looks basically at the weight of this, that is: if it is thinner or thicker, ignoring other parameters with more value.

Cotton quality is more important

And because? Because it is what will define the duration of the garment, its resistance to washing, the degree of deformation it will have and the overall appearance that it will maintain with its use. Without going into too technical details, I will explain the differences:

 - Carded Cotton: It is the most economical since it has gone through a simpler manufacturing process. Its threads are thicker and less uniform, giving a more open mesh. It is the one that shrinks the most and deforms although they usually have a high weight.

 - Combed Cotton: The previously carded cotton has been combed, which results in finer and more uniform threads with tighter meshes, which provides less deformation with washing.

 - Ring Spun: Produces resistant, fine and soft threads. They provide a soft touch. They give good results in screen printing

 - Belcoro thread: It is a quality standard used by Fruti of the Loom, it is a good thread, with a good result in screen printing although more rough than the previous one.

Cotton or Polyester?

It depends. If what we want is a shirt designed to wear, better cotton. If what we want is a sports shirt, the so-called technical, better breathable polyester, since the cotton ones are soaked with sweat which causes us to cool in winter when we stop and in summer we will sweat more due to the high humidity of the body.

Termination

Although at first glance many shirts look the same, if you look we will see that not all are the same finished. In some, the seams are not completely hidden, or have loose threads, or are too thick, or in the case of the neck, it is not one piece, so it ends up deforming, it is not reinforced, or the stitching is very visible.

Another part to look at is the sleeve and body hem. There are times that this is not perfectly straight, or that the cutting of the fabric has not been precise, so the shirt is somewhat longer on one side than on the other.

Weight

We recommend a weight of 145-155 gr for a promotional garment. for short sleeves and 180-200 gr. for long sleeves, unless you want a superior quality appearance in which case we would go to 180-190 gr. in short sleeves In long sleeves, there are usually no bigger weights since for more coat we turn to sweatshirts.

To finish just add that it is best to be advised by the professional of the sector that will propose the most appropriate models to the needs of your client.