I have been experimenting with discharge lately and I would suggest washing before wearing. Even after the garment goes through the dryer and is fully dicharged, you can still smell it on the tee, But I am no expert, just my opinion given my limited experience with discharge.
Stuart (brent) from Vacord is the man when it comes to this stuff, maybe he'll chime in.
Matsui has a phalate free discharge now. I think all their discharge inks are phalate free. But they still have formaldehyde. And yes you are supposed to wash before wearing. I don't, personally. Also one wash removes the slight hand of the shirt, so the print has no feeling/hand at all.
Other than the formaldehyde concern, Matsui makes very good discharge inks (discharge clear, white, and bright) at very affordable prices. I get my stuff from westixonline.com and I can't recommend those guys enough. They've been extremely helpful to me.
Discharge is sorta nasty stuff. Make sure you have good ventilation. I run the exhaust from my oven out the back door but it doesn't catch everything. Sometimes I get a headache if I'm curing a ton of it.
I wasnt suggesting washing before delivery to the customer, I personally would NEVER do this, I was saying maybe a note to the customer with the order suggesting washing beofre wearing, but again, I am still in the testing stage with discharge.
To make the hand softer grab the shirt a give it a little stretch.
We us Wilflex NF discharge inks which are formaldahyde free. Yes it costs a little more but again we charge for it. The largest run we did with this was 2500 shirts 2 colors.
If you do use a formaldahyde discharge the shirts should be labeld to wash before wearing.
We did a run yesterday that had a little feel to them after curing. Two hours later, we were ready to bag and tag them. I did notice that there wasn't as much of a feel while we were bagging them. Maybe the shirts just need to move around a little.
Question about Discharge process 
