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A crisp and clean white T-shirt is the one staple that every woman should have in her closet. It goes well under blazers, matches almost any skirt, and, of course, pairs perfectly with your favorite jeans. But finding a T-shirt that still looks good after you’ve owned it for six months can be a challenge. We've already found the best white T-shirts for men that hold up the best to regular wear and tear, and now it's time for the women's results. If you want to buy a solid white T-shirt that will still look great six months later, we recommend the J. Crew Slim Perfect tee (available at J.Crew for $32.50), a fitted rib knit shirt that held up the best in our measurement, wear, and opacity tests. If you’re looking for a looser jersey knit tee that won’t break the bank, we recommend the Cotton T-shirt from H&M (available on hm.com for $4.99) as our value pick.
We designed out tests to discern quality shirts from garments that disintegrate after one wearing. But the danger in a white T-shirt is not always about wear and tear: No one likes to buy a shirt online only to find out that it’s see-through after you receive it, so we took special care to include opacity in our women’s shirt testing. If you want a shirt that will last—and won’t reveal too much—then this is the list is for you.
These are the best white T-Shirts for women we tested ranked, in order:
J Crew Slim Perfect Crew H&M Cotton T-shirt Gildan Softstyle T-Shirt - 64000 James Perse Luxe Lotus Jersey Tee Fruit of the Loom Men's Stay Tucked Crew T-Shirt Old Navy EveryWear V-Neck Tee for Women Ninety Percent Faye oversized organic cotton-jersey T-shirt Everlane The Cotton V-Neck Hanes Tagless Crew Neck T-Shirt Madewell Whisper Cotton V-Neck Pocket Tee Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar Best Overall J.Crew Slim Perfect T-Shirt
The J. Crew Slim Perfect Shirt won our tests by keeping its shape better than any other contender. It also scored high on the opacity tests, with one wear tester noting that she “was wearing a black tank top underneath, and it barely showed.”
But, this shirt comes with a caveat. It’s very fitted, and very stretchy—so much so that one tester wrote she “immediately checked out the inside tag to see if there was Spandex or some other blend,” and she “was surprised to see it was 100% cotton.” That fit and stretch are due to the knit of the shirt. If you look closely, the shirt seems to have an interlock, double, or rib knit construction, which makes it different from the other shirts we tested, all of which were jersey knit.
Regardless of the construction differences, though, this shirt held its shape after all of our washes better than the other contenders and scored very well on our opacity and measurement tests. If you feel comfortable in a fitted shirt and want to ensure you’re making a quality purchase, we recommend this J. Crew option.
Where to Buy $32.50 from J.Crew Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar Best Value H&M Cotton T-shirt
This little number from Swedish fast fashion brand H&M earned raves from our wear testers. “I want to wear this shirt home! I wish I didn't have to change out of it,” one tester gushed, noting positively that she couldn’t see the black bralette she was wearing underneath. These survey rapsodies—along with its bargain $4.99 price—won this shirt our “Best Value” designation.
Where to Buy $4.99 from H&M How We Tested The Testers
We’re Megan McCarthy, the executive editor for growth, and Kyle Hamilton, a product test technician here at Reviewed. We are both people who wear clothing, and are both fond of T-shirts. Megan selected the shirts, designed the tests, ran the measurement tests before and after the shirts were washed and worn, and lead the visual tests. Kyle ran the laundry tests—every wash and dry cycle—ensuring that each wash was the same exact procedure each time.
The Tests
It’s a minor scandal when a celebrity repeats an outfit, but everyday Americans don’t have to walk the red carpet on a daily basis. According to educator and textile expert Deborah Young, the assistant chair for textile science at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM), most people wear the same 18 garments over and over again in any given month. So, if you’re an average American, you likely wear the same shirt about two or three times a month. Because we wanted to evaluate our picks based on how these shirts would look after six months of regular wear, we designed our tests to evaluate how well these T-shirts hold up over 15 wash and dry cycles.
The shirts: We decided to test the best T-shirts for men and the best T-shirts for women together. We chose our contenders based on suggestions from our product experts, Google search rankings, Amazon results, and other publication’s best T-shirt lists. For consistency, we ordered all the shirts in a size Large. Between the two lists, we had a total of 18 shirts, which ranged in price from $2.50 per shirt from both Hanes and Fruit of the Loom to $350 for a men’s shirt from The Row, a fashion brand founded by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. (The most expensive shirt in our Women’s test was the James Perse Luxe Lotus Jersey Tee, which we bought from jamesperse.com for $165.)
While the men’s T-shirts we tested were pretty much all the same style, the women’s contenders had more variety. We decided that, while style would be a variable in our testing, fit would not, due to its complexity and reliance on personal factors. (One woman may feel that a shirt looks great on her while another woman of the same size, height, and body type might not feel comfortable in it, even if it looks the same.) Because our goal was to find the shirts that will last over time, we decided to leave the fit question to the reader. We can find you the shirts that will last, you should use our research to pick out the ones you like the best.
Measurement testing: Cotton shirts are going to shrink, there’s no way to avoid it. What sets a quality shirt apart from a terrible garment is the amount of shrinkage. According to Young, acceptable shrinkage for knits is 5%. We measured the shirts when they were brand new to get our base measurements and after weeks of wear and wash testing, we measured the shirts again to see the differences.
To get our base figures, we used a flexible tape measure to measure four points on each shirt: 1) The length of the back of the shirt, from the back of the center neckline to the center hem, 2) The length of the front of the shirt, from the center neckline to the center hem, 3) The width across the front of the shirt, from armpit seam to armpit seam, and 4) The length of the arm, from the sleeve seam to the hem of the arm, along the seam. We also weighed the shirt using a Sartorius AY501 scale. Once the wash and wear tests were completed at the end of the month, we repeated the measuring and weighing process with each shirt. We calculated the differences between the before and after numbers to measure the shrinkage of each shirt, and compared the results among the contenders.
Wash testing: We always washed all 18 shirts together in one load, with two white towels added to the drum as ballast. We washed each load in a LG WT7300CW Top Load Washer on the delicate cycle, which used cold tap water. We used an exact measurement of 46ml of Persil liquid laundry detergent, the winner of our Best Laundry Detergent roundup, as the cleansing agent for each wash. When the wash was done, we dried the shirts in the delicate cycle using a Samsung DV431AEP/XAA Dryer. Each shirt was washed after it was worn, and every shirt went through a total of 15 wash and dry cycles.
Wear testing: We anonymized all of the shirts, to the best of our ability, by striking out the brand name with a Sharpie laundry marker and writing a number on the inside back neck of the shirt. We asked our Reviewed co-workers to wear a random shirt for a few hours around the office, and then answer a short survey ranking the shirt for comfort, style, and overall experience. A total of 12 Reviewed employees participated in the anonymous wear testing. This testing phase went on every work day for two weeks.
Visual tests: Once the wear and wash testing phases were completed, we hung the shirts on our best clothes hangers and visually evaluated each shirt on a three-point “rattiness” scale. A shirt received 3 points if it looked fairly new and kept it shape, 2 points if it looked well-loved but lived-in, and 1 point if it was beat to all hell.
Opacity testing: For the women’s roundup, we added an extra data point: How opaque is the shirt? A see-through shirt can be an embarassing on many levels, and we wanted to avoid recommending a shirt that would make its wearer feel exposed.
Credit: Reviewed / Betsey Goldwasser
Reviewed's head scientist Julia MacDougall sets up a T-shirt over the CS-200.
We ran all of our shirts through two opacity tests, one objective and one subjective. For our first test, Reviewed's chief scientist Julia MacDougall set up a Konica Minolta CS-200 color/luminance reader that we usually use to test televisions and other light-emitting screens. In our darkened lab, she placed each shirt over the lens, and then measured the amount of light the reader received.
Credit: Reviewed / Betsey Goldwasser
Testing the amount of light the CS-200 can see through a T-shirt.
For the second test, our e-commerce editor Samantha Gordon tried on each of the shirts while a panel of Reviewed employees checked if we could spot her tattoos through the fabric. That measurement was on a three-point scale: 3 points if the shirt was completely opaque, 2 points if we could see that tattoos if we stared a bit, and 1 point if the tattoos were visible at first glance.
Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar
Reviewed's e-commerce editor Samantha Gordon uses a piece of red construction paper to demonstrate how colors shows through the shirt. The photography lighting made our opacity tests difficult to capture on camera. In person, we could see Samantha's tattoos through this shirt.
We calculated both tests into one opacity score and used that number to rank the shirts in our final rankings.
What You Should Know About White T-Shirts
Style icons from Jane Birkin to Kate Moss have turned plain white T-shirts into a staple of women’s fashion. The T-shirt is likely the most popular piece of clothing in the average American closet, and, odds are, you might be wearing one right now.
Traditional white T-shirts—and all of the shirts in our women's roundup—are 100% cotton, although the type of cotton can differ among shirts. Standard cotton is a short staple cotton called “upland cotton.” Higher-quality cotton, like pima or Egyptian, is known as extra-long staple cotton. (You may have also heard of Supima cotton. Supima is the brand name of a nonprofit organization that promotes pima cotton and licenses that name to different manufacturers.) The difference between a short staple and a long staple is right there in the name. The fiber in standard cotton is about 1 ¾ inches long, while pima is 2 ½ or 3 inches. This fiber length is essential in ensuring a smooth finish in the fabric. As FIDM's Young puts it, “the shorter the fiber, the more ends you have sticking out.”
T-shirts are also differentiated by the type of knit. The typical T-shirt is a jersey knit, which provides a comfortable amount of drape and doesn’t stretch out too far. Rib knit, another popular option, is stretchier and results in a more fitted look. Due to the fitted nature, rib knits are more popular with women’s styles.
But What About Pit Stains?
Yellow discoloration in your armpits isn’t the fault of your T-shirt. Blame the combination of your sweat with the aluminum from your antiperspirant for those awful shirt-killing stains. While the weight of a shirt can help prolong the stains from forming for a bit—thinner white shirts will show stains on the outside faster than thicker shirts—most stain prevention is best accomplished by pretreating your shirt before you wash it or switching up your deodorant to one without aluminum. Another trick to keep shirts pristine and white is somewhat counterintuitive: Go easy on the bleach. According to Young, overbleaching your shirt can cause the entire garment to yellow.
Other White T-Shirts We Tested Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar Gildan Softstyle T-Shirt - 64000
This $6 workhorse from Canadian manufacturer Gildan proved to be a solid choice. Two testers praised its sleeves, with one noting they were “perfectly long” and another sharing that she “thought the sleeves looked nice.” This shirt also scored well in our opacity tests, coming in second place among all of our shirts in the CS-200 tests.
Where to Buy $6.00 from Gildan $3.99 from Amazon Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar James Perse Luxe Lotus Jersey Tee
James Perse is the go-to T-shirt brand for a certain set of glitterati. (If you’ve seen a celebrity in a tee lately, like John Legend on The Voice, odds are good it’s James Perse.) This is definitely the brand to beat if you’re looking for a status shirt. And if you only care about comfort and softness, this tops the charts. “It's extremely soft, but otherwise not much different from any other t shirt,” noted one tester.
Don’t get us wrong: This is a very nice shirt, and it held its shape well over the wear and wash testing cycle. That’s an impressive feat of construction, because this shirt weighed in with the least amount of mass out of all of the shirts we tested. But the downsides were pretty apparent. This was the priciest shirt we tested for women, and you’re trading a lot of comfort for not a lot of coverage. ”Good cut, but very, very sheer,” warned one tester. Our opacity tests confirmed that sentiment. It was in our bottom three in the CS-200 testing and, in person, we could see our opacity model’s tattoos at a glance from across the room.
Where to Buy $165.00 from James Perse Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar Fruit of the Loom Men's Stay Tucked Crew T-Shirt
Women often wear men’s or boy’s undershirts as regular T-shirts, especially due to the savings you can get from buying shirts in bulk for $2.50 each. This Fruit of the Loom offering was our “Best Bulk Buy” winner for the men’s T-shirt roundup, and it scored pretty well among the women’s contenders, too. In fact, this shirt was our top scorer on the CS-200 opacity tests. So if you’re looking to stock up on shirts you know will last—and won’t show anything you don’t want to reveal—pick these.
Where to Buy $14.98 from Amazon $14.98 from Walmart Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar Old Navy EveryWear V-Neck Tee for Women
One of our editors swears by the V-neck T-shirts from Old Navy and has been buying them for about 10 years now. In our tests, these shirts were firmly in the middle of the pack, with our survey respondents complimenting the feel, but complaining about the style. (It was too low-cut for one, and too high-cut on the sides for another.) It scored fairly well in our opacity tests. While our reviewers could see our opacity model’s tattoos if we stared at the shirt, it wasn’t as obvious as other, sheerer shirts on this list. This Old Navy tee also scored the best in opacity out of any other V-neck shirt we tested.
Where to Buy $12.99 from Old Navy Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar Ninety Percent Faye oversized organic cotton-jersey T-shirt
Ninety Percent is a brand dedicated to”luxurious essentials that will give back to society” they claim. This shirt, available at fancy fashion website Net-a-Porter, offers buyers to indicate which one of four charities should receive 10% of its purchase price as a donation. It’s also part of “Net Sustain,” a platform on Net-a-Porter dedicated to sustainable fashion. For our purposes, this heavyweight shirt performed excellent in our opacity tests—it was the first T-shirt Samantha Gordon tried it on where no one in our panel could see her tattoos through the shirt. But it was not a favorite among the survey takers, with it receiving poor points for style and comfort.
Where to Buy $65.00 from Net-A-Porter Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar Everlane The Cotton V-Neck
Everlane won our roundup of the best men's tees, so we had high hopes for their basic women’s T-shirt, an item that was one of the first women’s garments this startup sold. However, the opacity—or lack thereof—of this white tee tanked it in our rankings. “It's pretty sheer; I wore it as an undershirt and it was great, but I wouldn't wear it as a plain white tee because it's too see-through,” wrote one tester. Another chimed in with a similar complaint: “If I never looked in a mirror, I'd give this shirt 10/10. It was comfortable, stylish, and flattering. However, it was too sheer for my liking and I could see my jeans through it. Maybe it would be fine in a darker color, but with white, it's enough that I'd opt not to purchase this in the future.”
Where to Buy $18.00 from Everlane Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar Hanes Tagless Crew Neck T-Shirt
Testers were unimpressed with this basic of basics, and the test results showed more shrinkage than other shirts on this list. Choose the Fruit of the Loom instead.
Where to Buy $9.99 from Amazon $12.46 from Walmart Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar Madewell Whisper Cotton V-Neck Pocket Tee
“Whisper” is the right term to describe this shirt, which was the second-lightest shirt by weight out of all of our test subjects. It also sunk to the bottom of our visual tests: When hung on the hanger after our wash and wear testing was complete, it looked like it had seen some better days. But the opacity tests doomed this shirt to be last on our list, as it let through the most amount of light according to the CS-200. Anecdotally, one of our survey respondents confirmed that finding and gave it the kiss of death for any women’s white T-shirt: “you could definitely see my bra through it.”
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