My darn contrary cotton shirts

Factual Questions
1

All of my nice shirts are 100% cotton, and if you look in my closet, you will see two types: size Large shirts which have shrunk in the wash and are too small, and size XL shirts which have not shrunk at all and are too large. And it doesn’t seem to matter whether the shirts claim to be PreShrunk – they just do what they please.

I suppose that short of handwashing them in cold water, there’s not much I can do to stop the shrinkage of the Large shirts, if that is what they really have their little cotton hearts set on. But I was wondering about the XL ones. Is there anything I can do to force them to shrink? I have tried putting them in the hot wash and drying them on high, but that doesn’t make a difference. They stay as baggy as ever.

Have any Dopers found clever ways to make their shirts shrink?

2

I find that if I don’t run new shirts through the dryer the first time I wash them, they don’t shrink (as much).

Slightly OT, but if you have a long torso, you might want to try Large Tall shirts.

3

It is my general policy never to put a button-down shirt in the dryer, unless I am deliberately trying to shrink it. Frustratingly, though, the XL ones I am referring to don’t shrink, even the first time I dry them in the dryer…