Undershirt Review – Hanes Lay Flat Collar – ComfortSoft
As luck would have it, Mrs. Tug came across the new Hanes® Lay Flat Collar undershirts today while
shopping at our local Walmart. She was kind enough to pick up a 5-pack for me so I could take a closer look.
The package of five undershirts cost a mere $9.47 (plus tax, that’s $2.06 per shirt). So if you’re on a budget, it’s not going to get much better than this. As with their other undershirts, these are packaged in a clear 2mil poly bag with color printing on the front and back sides. On the front, they highlight some of their newer features including: “Now Softer!”, “LAY FLAT Collar!”, in addition to the traditional “TAGLESS® T-shirts”.
In looking at the undershirt itself, the crewneck collar trim does seem to stand out as being wider than their traditional undershirts, but I don’t have any older Hanes crewnecks to actually compare it to. The collar trim measures a full 7/8 of an inch to the inner stitching and a total of 1″ to the outer collar trim stitching. It actually looks pretty nice.
Considering Hanes typically cuts their undershirts a little more generously, I decided to try out their Medium-sized (38-40″) shirts, which was a good call. Overall, the shirt fit me nicely throughout my shoulders, torso, waist and hips. This undershirt is cut extra long, so the bottom hangs down a full 10″ below my pants waist line which should help it stay tucked better. The shirt is made of 100% Cotton and although it doesn’t say it on the package, I believe these are pre-washed or pre-shrunk so I don’t expect them to shrink much after the first was
h. (see below)
Although these are labeled as “ComfortSoft” undershirts and are marketed as “Softer!”, the shirt feels pretty itchy straight out of the package, especially around the collar and shoulder area. To be candid, I would not recommend wearing them until you run them through the wash at least once. After trying one on, I really don’t get the feeling these are any softer than their predecessors, but it’s good marketing spin nonetheless.
I can’t honestly say that I see any big difference with these new undershirts, nor is there anything that stands out as particularly good or bad about them. However, at just over $2 a shirt, the new Hanes Lay Flat Collar undershirts are a good value overall.
6/01/08 Update: Correction, they do shrink. I got the impression these were supposed to be preshrunk from this quote in the Hanes press release I wrote about the other day:
The Tagless® undershirts also feature preshrunk cotton specially knit for softness.
I washed the bunch per the care instructions yesterday and found that the undershirts did not fit me as well as they did prior to washing. The shirt lost roughly 2.75″ of length (from 10″ below my waistline to 7.25″) and the torso and mid section got fairly snug. Considering this material is not all that stretchy, the tighter fit on these shirts is not very comfortable. Since I asked for a medium instead of a large, I’ll chalk this one up to end-user error in buying the wrong size. Btw, the shirts still feel a bit itchy/scratchy to me.
Disclaimer: Under normal circumstances I would have expected these undershirts to shrink since they are 100% cotton. I normally would have chosen a large instead of a medium. The shrinkage amounts I described above are very reasonable for 100% cotton shirts.
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(2 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
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I bought a package of these last week, and was sorely disappointed. I couldn’t believe how thin the fabric was! I could see clean through it whenever I looked at myself in the mirror. I compared these new shirts to my previous Hanes ones (which I was attempting to replace because they were too thread-worn) and found that the fabric was almost twice as heavy on the old as the new! Why would I even pay $2 a piece for a shirt that is already worn out? I’m going to check out the similar priced Fruit-of-the-Loom model this weekend sometime.
Hi Tony, Thanks for the info. Please let us know what you think of the Fruit-of-the-Loom undershirts you pick-up. I used to wear them too, but have graduated to wearing light-weight fitted undershirts.