--Does anyone out there know of a type of starch that will get shirts very stiff like the drycleaners can when they launder & starch shirts??>>

I use a homemade recipe of a couple of tablespoons of cornstarch in a spray bottle of water. Shake it up and spray! I usually use it on my good table linens and it does make them very crisp. You can reduce or increase the amount of cornstarch if you like. As an added benefit, cornstarch acts as a buffer against stains, and will help food stains wash out more easily. The only thing you have to be careful of is since this is an organic mixture with no stabilizers it will go bad. Cleaning a mildewy spray bottle is no fun so make sure to dump out the excess and rinse out the bottle when you are done.

I use this method and just keep it in the refrigerator, it doesn't mildew.

My SO has the best idea of all. He buys regular concentrated liquid laundry starch, in the bottle and then makes up one of the formulas on the back of the bottle for spray starch. All you need then is a spray bottle and this saves lots of money (costs about $2.50 - $3.00 and makes MANY bottles of spray starch). The good part about this liquid starch is that you can make it so you have very stiff clothing items after ironing, if that is what you want. He even uses the store brand and has great results. I now also use this method ...wish I knew about it before when I was pressing uniforms! BTW, just to show how stiff the clothes get; I used this "spray starch" to stabilize light weight linen to do embroidery and used no other stabilizer. Came out wonderfully! Try it...I think you will like the results. Of course, you could also use this starch to do starching "the old-fashion way"...the directions are on the bottle, but I prefer spraying. :)