Parent Hacks

A cure for itchy clothing labels

in: Organizing Time & Space

Andrea's hack also keeps the label from flipping up in back:

Why did I never think of this before hacking off a bunch of my daughter's shirt tags? (I inevitably break the thread of the neck and a hole is born.)

I got a little piece of iron-on no-sew hemming tape and tacked the tag down. No itching and no chance to ruin the shirt with my over-zealous tag removal. Duh…

I've noticed that several clothing brands (The Children's Place, Gap and Old Navy among them) have done away with labels altogether. It's about time!

Related: Remove clothing tags with a seamripper

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Comments

  1. This is a great hack! I can totally see myself using it. As for the tagless items, that’s a mixed bag for me. Yeah, not itching and not sticking out are good, but the labels affixed to the inside seem to wear out faster. This is an inconvenience for me, as I plan to reuse clothes for my next child, and I buy clothes second-hand. It’s hard to sort clothing into sizes if you can’t read the labels anymore. And what about the chemical burns that some children are experiencing from these tagless items?

    Thanks for the great idea!

  4. I was coming here to post about the chemical burns from the tagless shirts, too.

    I *love* tagless items, also being one that needs to remove them and often creates holes (or items will no longer be taken by resale shops because they can’t see the brand), and am glad that my kids haven’t seem affected.

    Could be that we’ve gotten most of our tagless items second-hand, though my oldest son’s underwear has been tagless for years and he hasn’t been bothered. 😀

  6. AMAZING HACK!!!! My daughter has just hit the “No Tags” stage and hates everything that has one. I don’t like cutting the tags b/c I hope to reuse the clothes again someday and don’t want to have to guess what size things are. I’m pulling out the iron and tape right now! Thanks!!!

  7. My son experienced burns from a non-Carters “tagless” sleeper. It was awful and it’s so HARD to find sleepers or even t-shirts with regular tags! Due with #2 in March and I’m trying to stockpile tagged sleepers now before they disappear altogether! There’s no way I’m going to subject any child of mine to potential burns again… freaky.

  8. I’m dealing w/ the chemical burns also. It’s horrible and I’m trying to find clothes w/ tags now. The sleepers seem to be the hardest to find. Check out the blog listed for more info on the Carters fiasco. Search (on the right hand side of the screen) for Carter’s and you’ll find the info.
    http://www.zrecommends.com

  9. What about ironing a patch over the label to keep your kids from getting direct skin contact with the ink?

  10. I love tagless clothes, but this chemical burn thing is scary!
    I think that there’s some federal law about fabric content info having to be sewn into the garment that prevents manufacturers from getting rid of tags completely.

  11. Great suggestion! Another possible solution, although definitely more time consuming, would be to loosely sew on a small patch of scrap fabric over the tag using thread which matches the color of the shirt. This might also be a good solution for tagless shirts to prevent any potential chemical burns. What’s best is handing clothes down is a simple matter of snipping a few threads and removing the patc!h

  12. I am kind of curious that everyone is using the term “chemical burns” as what is being described in the website from above’s notice is a rash that appears on the skin. My kids actually get a rash from the tags. Unless I am missing something, there is a big difference between a “chemical burn” and a rash.

  13. I get this rash myself and I hate the tagless tags more than the regular ones -theyre even more itchy and you can’t remove them. I’m going to try iron-on tape over them. (you can probably remove it by ironing them again to heat up the glue, and peeling off)