We have a rainbow of new colors to show off in the product assortment area…

The Men’s hemp t-shirt is now available in Navy and Olive.

The Men’s American Apparel jersey t-shirt is now available in the refreshing shades of Aqua and Lime.

Don’t worry we also have some summer, lemonade-like, colors in the Female American Apparel jersey t-shirt - Pink and Lemon. Red and Navy are also new for the female American Apparel jersey t-shirt too.

Good Bye Camo -The manufacturer has discontinued the camo t-shirts.  We are looking into finding another supplier for these.

This 3/4 sleeve boat neck shirt is from American Apparel.  Spreadshirt is stocking this shirt in white, red, black and lovely lavender.

We have had so much happening here that I thought I would post a little round up of 3 cool things that are happening now on the Spreadshirt blog that are worth a look.

1. Earth Day Savings until April 22, 2008 - save 15% on any item from the eco-friendly product category.
2. 1-2-3 Free - Get three new orders in your shop and get a $20 gift certificate from Spreadshirt - plus a chance to win an Ipod shuffle
3. Spreadshirt TestLab - check out or highly scientific and detailed look at how much an American Apparel t-shirt really shrinks

As you may have noticed from our blog, we are obsessed with t-shirts here at Spreadshirt, but obsessed in a good way. We want everyone who orders a Spreadshirt to be thrilled with their shirt and part of that is helping you order the right size. T-shirts can be tricky things - since they are mostly cotton there is a little bit of shrinking that takes place. We are always testing, washing, testing, photographing, washing, wearing shirts to make sure they are top quality. So we thought we would share some of our research with you. This is our first Test Lab post and we are starting with a look at the American Apparel men’s t-shirt.

In order to find out how good the AA shirts actually are, we went to our Spreadshirt Testlab for the very first time. Markus, a guy from production, took a bunch of black AA tees, washed time up to 20 times and checked how the lengths of the shirts, the lengths of the sleeves, the chest and the waist widths developed. We were also able to take a look at how the color and the fabric changed with washings.

Here´s the highly scientific setup:

• Products: American Apparel Men´s shirts
• Exact product name: AA 2001 Fine Jersey Short Sleeve T-Shirt
• Color: black
• Sizes: S to XXL
• 1 regular washing machine
• middle-class laundry detergent
• 1 special shirt measuring tape
• 20 washes
• measuring-sessions after 5, 10 and 20 washes

and the findings:

Length (A)

• in average, the shirts got 1.02 inches shorter - the XL-shirt performed best and only lost 0.39 inches
• overall it showed that small sizes lost more in length (about 1.18 inches) than big sizes (about 0.59 inches)
• result: it lost about -3.5%

Chest Width (B)

• on average, the shirts got about 0.75 inches tighter
• for the chest width as well, Ss and Ms lost more width (about 1.18 inches) than the large shirts (about 0.39 inches)
• result: it lost about -3.7%

Waist Width (C)

• the shirts lost about 0.87 inches waist width in average
• the average loss for small and medium was 1.06 inches and 0.59 inches for XL and XXL
• result: it lost about -4.0%

Sleeve Length (D)

• the sleeve lengths were the most stable measurements in the test - in average, the shirts lost only 0.28 inches in sleeve length
• the effect was a little stronger for the big shirts (about 0.39 inches) than it was for the smaller ones (about 0.2 inches)
• result: it lost about -3.2%

Wrap-Up: Size

• see an AA shirt (large) worn by Tobi (size: 6.1 feet)
• after 0, 5, 10 and 20 washes

Changes in Color and Fabric after Washing:

• saturation gets a little lower
• fabric gets a little linty

Conclusion

When it comes to shrinking, the AA shirts couldn´t totally satisfy my expectations. Especially when buying smaller sizes - depending on how one wants the shirts to fit - one should think about going for a larger shirt as the shirts come relatively fitted anyway.

However, what I found to be very positive is that the shirts overall shape stays stable. While you find other shirts to look like “As” or “Us” (the bottom and the neck often stretch out) after several washes, the AA keeps looking like a “T”. Also the collar - generally an Achilles heel of blank shirts, doesn´t lose shape.

The intensity of the black gets a little lower which I guess is a very common effect which could maybe be reduced by using better washing powder.

One of the things we know is a little tricky to figure out is the sizes of t-shirts. I think I wear a different size in each shirt we offer. So here is a little slide show to show you how the different sizes of the Men’s American Apparel t-shirt look on the same person. If you have never ordered and American Apparel t-shirt before please know these run very small. My one friend scoffed when I handed him an American Apparel XXL shirt insisting he usually wears and XL and that the XL is too big. Anyhow, the next day he was wearing the American Apparel XXL shirt and raving about how well it fit.

Don’t forget about the clearance sale - we have slashed prices on some great items - get them while you can.

1. Junior’s AA Organic Tee - 50% off
2. Men’s AA Organic Tee - 40% off
3. Junior’s Contrast Stitch Tee - 20% off
4. Junior’s AA Melange Ringer Tee - 23% off
5. Tag Bag - 35% off
6. Cinch Sack - 47% off
7. Women’s Bamboo Hooded Tee - $2.00 off
8. Men’s LS Bamboo Tee - $2.00 off
9. Men’s SS Bamboo Tee - $2.00 off

Just wanted to post a little reminder about the clearance sale - we have reduced prices on 9 different items.  We are clearing out the inventory to make room for some new stuff - don’t worry more bags, organics and bamboo are coming soon.  Click here to check out some more of the product in the clearance section.

Starting Today - we are reducing the base prices on the following items. All of these products except for the 3 bamboo products will eventually be removed from our assortment line.

1. Junior’s AA Organic Tee
2. Men’s AA Organic Tee
3. Junior’s Contrast Stitch Tee
4. Junior’s AA Melange Ringer Tee
5. Tag Bag
6. Cinch Sack
7. Women’s Bamboo Hooded Tee
8. Men’s LS Bamboo Tee
9. Men’s SS Bamboo Tee

I was watching The Early Show on CBS this morning and this was their viral video of the day. I love this video and I blogged about it here last April. I am sharing this video with you today because it is awesome and to remind you that Spreadshirt now offers the American Apparel Track Jacket for you to customize. It is not the exact same one as in the video, ours doesn’t have the white trim. But the track jacket is here (in white, black, red and navy) and it is awesome. I like to think of it as the more formal version of the hoodie.

And here is the amazing viral video of the day. One blog describes this as “the Matrix of Dance Offs”

We have a few of them, so what is the difference?
Here is a nice picture that shows the Asphalt and Slate Men’s Jersey T-shirts side-by-side. I know the Slate t-shirt is a little wrinkled but at least you can see the color differences.