Cleaning Plastic, Linen and Fabric Clergy Collars
Warm water and washing-up liquid does most of it. What to use on scuffs and ink, why the dishwasher warps a plastic collar, how linen is starched, and how to tell a dirty collar from a dead one.
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How to clean a plastic clergy collar: warm water no hotter than your hands can comfortably stand, a drop of washing-up liquid, a soft cloth, and thirty seconds. That is the whole method, and almost everything that goes wrong with plastic collars is caused by attempting something more heroic. The dishwasher warps them. Boiling water warps them. A radiator warps them. Linen and cotton-covered collars are different objects with different rules, and they are covered below — but the plastic ones, which is most of them, want nothing but soap, water and a cloth.
What follows assumes you already know which sort you own; if not, the four collar constructions and the materials each is made in sorts that out first.
How to clean a plastic clergy collar
The routine clean
- Run a basin of warm water — 35 to 40 °C, comfortable on the wrist. Add one drop of washing-up liquid.
- Wipe both faces of the collar with a soft cloth or a microfibre cloth. The soil is sebum, and detergent lifts it in seconds.
- Pay attention to the edges and, on a band, to the inside of the fold, where soil collects and where the eye does not go.
- Rinse under the cold tap and dry immediately with a towel. Do not leave it to air-dry on a windowsill.
- Store flat, or in the curve it was made in, in a drawer.
Done weekly this keeps a collar white for years. Done once a year it will not, because the soil oxidises and the surface micro-scratches fill with it.
What ruins them
The British Plastics Federation gives unmodified PVC a maximum continuous use temperature of 60 °C. Every warping disaster follows from ignoring that figure:
- The dishwasher. A domestic dishwasher’s sanitising rinse reaches roughly 150 °F, about 66 °C, on top of a hot main wash and a heated dry. The collar comes out curled and cannot be flattened. This advice circulates widely and it is wrong.
- Boiling water. 100 °C. Immediate and irreversible.
- The tumble dryer. Left in a shirt, a tab takes a permanent set in whatever shape the drum gave it.
- A radiator, an airing cupboard or a car dashboard in summer. Slow warping, and the collar goes brittle at the same time as the plasticisers are driven out.
- Iron sole plates. Even a one-dot iron at 120 °C is double the safe figure.
Scuffs, grey marks and ink
Grey marks on plastic are usually not stains at all. They are fine scratches — from a stud, a zip, the bottom of a bag — that have filled with soil. Detergent will not reach into them, which is why they seem stubborn.
- Bicarbonate of soda. A paste of bicarbonate and a few drops of water on a damp cloth, rubbed lightly along the length of the collar, is mildly abrasive and lifts soil out of shallow scratches. Rinse thoroughly. This is the safest of the abrasive options.
- Non-gel white toothpaste. Contains a similar mild abrasive and works the same way. It also leaves a residue that must be rinsed off completely or it will grey again in a fortnight.
- Melamine foam (“magic eraser”). Effective, and it works by abrasion — conservators discussing these sponges on the Conservation DistList noted that “the action involves some kind of abrasion” and that they did not know what residues were left behind. On a glossy collar it will visibly dull the finish, and the dull patch is permanent. Use it only on a matt collar, only on a mark you cannot otherwise shift, and work the whole face rather than one spot so the sheen stays even.
- Ballpoint ink. Isopropyl alcohol on a cotton bud, worked from the outside of the mark inwards. Test on the back edge first.
- Acetone and nail varnish remover. Do not. Solvents of this class attack many thermoplastics; a collar that has been wiped with acetone can go cloudy or tacky, and there is no way back from either.
A collar that has gone hard, brittle or yellow
Flexible PVC is flexible because of plasticisers, and the BPF notes that plasticisers are what make it “flexible, resilient and easier to handle”. Those plasticisers migrate out of the material over years, faster if the collar has been kept warm. The result is a collar that has lost its spring, sits stiffly, and eventually cracks along the fold or at the stud hole.
Yellowing is the other end of the same story. PVC needs heat stabilisers “to prevent the decomposition of the PVC by heat”, and those stabilisers also carry much of its resistance to daylight. Once they are exhausted, the colour change is in the polymer, not on it.
Neither is reversible. Nothing you can buy will re-plasticise a collar or bleach a degraded polymer back to white. A hard, yellowed or crazed collar is finished, and if it has gone hard it is also the likeliest thing in your wardrobe to be causing a sore neck, because the edge has stopped yielding.
Linen collars
A linen collar is laundered, starched and ironed, in that order, and there is no shortcut.
- Wash by hand. Lukewarm water, 25 to 35 °C, with a plain detergent and no optical brighteners. The Canadian Conservation Institute’s guidance for washing undyed textiles specifies water in that range with about 5 ml of anionic detergent per litre, and warns that textiles are weaker wet and should not stay wet longer than necessary. That is a conservation standard rather than a domestic one, but it is the right instinct for a collar you want to keep for twenty years.
- Rinse until the water runs clear. Detergent left in linen is one of the reasons collars grey.
- Starch while damp. Traditional practice is a heavy starch, either boiled from powder or from a modern spray. Dip, squeeze out, and let it come to just-damp before ironing.
- Iron damp, on the wrong side first, at three dots — a maximum sole plate temperature of 210 °C on the standard scale — then finish on the right side to bring up the glaze. Shape the curve over the edge of the board or a rolling pin while it is still warm.
- Dry completely before storing. Damp starched linen mildews, and the stain from that is not removable.
Starching is the historic practice, and it is what made detachable collars possible in the first place. The Textile Research Centre in Leiden records that from the 1820s these collars were made of starched linen and needed repeated washing and starching to hold their shape — which is precisely why celluloid, needing none of it, took the market at the end of the century.
Why linen collars yellow. Three causes, in order of frequency: residual starch, which oxidises; skin oils that were never fully rinsed out and have since gone rancid; and ultraviolet light. Store collars flat in a drawer, in acid-free tissue or plain cotton, never in a sunny vestry window and never in a polythene bag.
Cotton-covered and fabric collars
These are a stiffened core with a woven cover, and they are the easiest to clean and the shortest-lived.
- Machine wash in a mesh laundry bag, on a gentle cycle at 40 °C, with white shirts and never with blacks.
- Pre-treat the top edge exactly as you would a shirt neckband: a little neat liquid detergent, a soft toothbrush, fifteen minutes.
- Do not tumble dry. The core will not thank you and the cover shrinks against it, which is what makes a fabric collar buckle.
- Dry flat, shaped to its curve, and press on the wrong side at two dots.
- Oxygen bleach soaks are safe on these and will buy several months of extra life. Chlorine bleach is not, because the core and often the cover contain synthetics.
Expect a fabric collar to go from white to a soft off-white within a year of weekly wear, and to stay there. That is the trade for the comfort, and it is a reasonable trade if the collar is what stands between you and a raw neck.
What each material costs you in life and labour
| Material | Clean with | Never | Realistic life with weekly wear |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moulded plastic / PVC | Warm water and washing-up liquid; bicarbonate paste for scratches | Dishwasher, boiling water, dryer, iron, radiator, acetone | 3–5 years, ending in yellowing or a crack at the fold |
| Linen | Hand wash at 25–35 °C, starch, iron damp at three dots | Machine wash, chlorine bleach, storing damp or in polythene | 10–20 years if laundered properly; a lifetime if rarely worn |
| Cotton-covered / fabric | Machine wash at 40 °C in a mesh bag; oxygen bleach soak | Tumble dryer, chlorine bleach, washing with blacks | 1–2 years to a permanent off-white |
| Soft / flexible comfort tabs | Warm water and washing-up liquid, dried flat | Any heat at all; they deform faster than rigid PVC | 1–2 years before they stop holding shape |
| Celluloid (historic) | Damp cloth only, then dry | Heat, flame, solvents, enclosed warm storage | Not a wearing material; keep it as an artefact |
When to stop cleaning and replace
Hold the collar up to a window and flex it gently. Replace it if any of these are true: it has a crack or a crease that stays after flexing; it has gone yellow through the material rather than on the surface; the edge has a nick or a burr you can feel with a fingernail; the gloss has gone patchy from abrasive cleaning; a stud hole has torn. None of those are cleaning problems.
Given that a plastic tab is the cheapest consumable in a clergy wardrobe, the sensible policy is to keep three or four in rotation, retire them early, and never be in the position of scrubbing a marginal collar at eight o’clock on a Sunday morning. Which construction you are buying spares for is worth settling once — tabs against full bands is the decision that determines the running cost.
Common questions
Can you put a plastic clergy collar in the dishwasher?
No. A domestic dishwasher’s sanitising rinse runs at around 66 °C and the drying cycle is hotter still, against a maximum continuous use temperature of about 60 °C for PVC. The collar comes out curled or twisted and cannot be flattened. Warm water and washing-up liquid does the same cleaning job in thirty seconds.
How do I whiten a clergy collar that has gone grey?
Establish first whether it is soil or degradation. Soil sits in fine scratches and comes out with a bicarbonate paste and a light rub. Degradation is a colour change in the plastic itself and nothing removes it. A quick test: rub a small area firmly for ten seconds — if it lightens at all, it is soil; if it does not, the collar is finished.
Should linen collars still be starched?
If you want them to look as they were designed to look, yes. An unstarched linen collar will not hold its shape or its glaze. Starch heavily, iron while distinctly damp, and shape the curve while the linen is still warm. Store it dry — starched linen stored damp will mildew, and mildew stains linen permanently.
Can I use bleach on a clergy collar?
Oxygen bleach, yes, on cotton-covered and linen collars. Chlorine bleach, no: it attacks any elastane or synthetic content, it can dull plastic, and on a linen collar it weakens the fibre in a way that shows up two years later as splits along the fold rather than as immediate damage.
Why has my collar gone hard?
Plasticiser loss. The compounds that keep PVC flexible migrate out over time and much faster if the collar has been stored somewhere warm. It is not reversible, and a hardened collar is also the one most likely to cut into your neck, so it is worth replacing rather than persevering with.
The five-minute vestry drawer audit
Take every collar and tab you own out of the drawer and lay them on a white cloth. Anything with a crack, a burr on the edge, a torn stud hole or a colour that does not lighten when rubbed goes in the bin now, not back in the drawer. Wash what remains in warm soapy water, dry it properly, and put it away flat. Count what is left: if it is fewer than three wearable pieces, order more before you need them. The same principle governs the rest of the wardrobe, and the wider care and storage routine sets it out; the shirts themselves are a separate job, dealt with in washing the shirt and its neckband. Spares in the smaller sizes and heights are the ones that run out first, so check the accessories you keep in reserve rather than assuming the drawer is stocked.
