Non-Plastic Collar Sources?

DARLINGS, Sarah is burning up! Help her!

Hello! I have a question for you. I’m wondering if you know where one can find collars that are NOT plastic. I found MDS, but they seem pretty specialized (matching their shirts but not necessarily others) AND they want you to buy a minimum of $25. A three-pack is less than that. Any ideas? This plastic is getting hot!

AUGH! Dear Sarah, I do hope someone has some good advice on this as I do think that burning your neck for Jesus is not a necessary sacrifice of the ordained ministry. My heavens.

12 Replies to “Non-Plastic Collar Sources?”

  1. Cokes bury.com sells LINEN collars. That is all I will wear. They are $20 each but frequently on sale for $10 each (what I have paid for mine.)

  2. Oh, they are starched so just as sharp and professional as the plastic, actually look much better. You can was with dish soap and they some them in liquid starch. Dry flat and reshape once dry. Easy!

  3. I got mine in Italy, but the tailor I visited seem to have since gone over to #2 plastic.

    Wippell’s, I believe, carry them, but they have never had a website worth anything, and now it’s entirely taken down.

    Anything is better than the old acetate ones — a terrible rash ensues.

  4. I second Cokesbury. Plastic collars are hot sweaty death bands of doom. I wore them once. After a police memorial service where my Sergeant collapsed with heat exhaustion, I ripped that collar off and never looked back.

    I wash mine by soaking them in Oxyclean, rinsing well, and dipping in starch, and smearing flat to dry on a mirror. Drying usually takes overnight.

    Wippells also has them if you want to spend a boatload of money.

  5. I’ve seen patterns for knit collars–supposedly much cooler than the plastic ones. They breath!

  6. Thank you all! Aidan’s Comfort Collars are in Ann Arbor, MI, I see, so extra points for them! I’ll look into these possibilities right away. I’ll see if I can find the patterns mentioned above, too. Anyone have a link?

  7. My challenge is that I manage to get foundation on my collar all the time. It is really easy to wash off a plastic collar but I don’t know that it would be so easy to get off a cloth collar. If I could figure out how to keep the foundation off the collar altogether, that would be a huge win. Any thoughts? I don’t think not wearing foundation is the right answer for me. [Oh boy, that’s a good question. Have you tried any of the mineral powder foundations? I am not a fan but tons of women LOVE them and swear by them, and I don’t think they rub off the same way other foundations do. – PB]

  8. JeanAnn – is it essential for you to wear a wrap-around white collar? The clerical shirts with an insert tab, so only the darker colour touches your skin, would seem to be made for this problem.

  9. I have switched over to tab collars myself for much of my collar wearing time. As a woman, no one will think I am a Roman Catholic priest.

  10. I always thought I would wear a tab collar. It would solve the problem because it’s already cotton around most of the neck, but it makes me look too masculine. Or something. How inconvenient.

  11. I love the Aiden collars, and I find that they–especially when new–“take” foundation stains much less than others, including the Cokesbury linen collars. Wippell (England) makes fabulous cotton collars, but they are difficult to obtain, as they (gasp!) do not have working website ordering.

    When my Aiden collars have been washed repeatedly, they lose some of their “foundation resisting” properties–and so I spray with ScotchGuard, which seems to help. The Wippell collars resist foundation pretty well when I use liquid starch on them. I dilute liquid starch with water 1:1, dip the collars, hang to dry, and then sprinkle/steam iron. Or….just take them to the dry cleaners for laundering! 🙂

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