How chemistry makes your ironing easier

I hate ironing, I’ll do more or less anything to avoid it. So faced with a giant pile of laundry I got easily distracted. I started to wonder why those shirts emerged from the machine looking like a tangled bag of rags. How come the cotton clothes get crumpled so easily? And what’s with easy-iron garments, why don’t they need so much pressing?

Since I’m a scientist I know it is important to understand the theory behind a methodology. And so it became imperative, before unleashing the iron and its board, that I found the answers to these pressing questions.