Anyone who's ever been to any sort of metal show (or seen This is Spinal Tap) knows that there's none more black than a headbanger's wardrobe. If a show completely kicks your brains in, it's common courtesy to pick up a t-shirt and wear it until the Far Beyond Driven logo fades and your back hair crawls out of the baseball-sized holes in the back. Thankfully, metal blog Atmospheric Black Metal Kitchen has posted some tips, composed by Scott Maxwell, which are sure to solve every metalhead's laundry quandaries.
The post reads, in part:
1) WOOLITE IST KRIEG. Your precious metal shirts are meant to be handwashed, so as to preserve the ink prints and the integrity of the fabric. Woolite is expensive, but it is an investment in your metal cred. In recent years, WOOLITE DARK has been introduced, formulated for dark clothes exclusively. USE IT! Immortal would endorse no less.
2) COLD WASH ONLY. Allow your clothes to soak in waters as cold as the rivers of Blashyrkh itself, without agitation. HAND WASH, or use the "hand washables" cycle on your washing machine. Your precious metal shirts get enough violent agitation when you're wearing them in the mosh pit.
3) NEVER USE FABRIC SOFTENER ON METAL SHIRTS. "Softener" on a metal shirt? Are you kidding? Does the Snuggle bear really look like he knows the difference between Iron Maiden and Iron Angel? Not only should true metalheads welcome and relish Unsoftness, but fabric softener works by expanding the fibers of the fabric, thereby subjecting your battle armor to undue wear and tear. There's time for that later.
We won't give away the rest of it, which you can read here, but before you chime in with some remark about how cleanliness isn't metal, I'd suggest you read Maxwell's last paragraph.
