Cultural difference: dress shirt composition

After living here for -- what, two years? -- I discovered yet another cultural difference between Australia and the U.S.

Although the dress code is pretty flexible at my new job, I thought I'd dress up a bit, so I went out on Saturday to look for some dress shirts. Generally, I prefer 100% cotton; otherwise, I sweat like a monkey.

So, looked at Target and at Big W. (1) Couldn't seem to find any 100% cotton; maybe cotton is more expensive here? (2) In the States, they label dress shirts by the percentage [e.g. "60% cotton, 40% polyester"]; here, they just do it by the order [first-listed is the larger proportion]. So, "cotton/polyester" is mostly cotton, whereas "polyester/cotton" is mostly polyester. ("Cotton/polyester" is referred to as "cotton-rich.")

So: considering I prefer to know what the specific proportion of my shirts are cotton (60-40? 80-20? 90-10?), and also prefer 100% cotton -- looks like I might end up picking up men's dress shirts during my annual visits to Seattle.

OTOH, picked up a sea-green polyester-cotton dress shirt for ten bucks -- with a free necktie!!! ;)


--GG