Less washing means less time managing laundry – less of everything -washing, drying, putting away and organizing clothes. Less washing also means More savings in time, money and overall resouces.
Washing your clothes only when necessary, helps to slows down the fading of colors and aging of the fabric in general. That means your favorite clothing can last longer. This is also a big win for environmental impacts. Our experiment revolved around one question.
The deciding factors was more about hygiene than a routine or a habit. A quick assessment guide with some experimentation could help figure out a process that works. Here are few things that we noticed of the bet and were crucial from our experimentation on maximizing the Laundry. To figure this out, we took few everyday wears and tested it for about 14 months. We found that most of our clothing does not have to be washed after every time you wear it. Here is our findings.
Jeans on an average can perform and looked great without a wash for 7- 10 months. In fact, we found that the jeans fit better after every wear. We tested four pair of Jeans 1) Two of them were washed after every time it was worn 2) The other two were washed on an average at 7-10 months (each worn 3 times a week).
We found that the jeans that went in wash after average of 7-10 months retained the great blue colors. The fabric looked and felt a bit thicker too. It felt more closer to the feel of the newer Jeans than the one with multiple washes. On the other hand the Jeans that were washed after every time it was worn, felt stiff when putting it on. Regardless, after every wash the jeans lost a bit of its ability to go back to the same amount of stretch. So naturally, the pairs washed more often lost the comfort stretch quicker.
In the process of experimenting, we did’t experience any obscene stains accept one ink stain. Over the time the stain kind of blended in and became a great story telling of the incident. We figured to simultaneously create a similar stain on the other Jeans for better comparison. We found that the stain on the Jeans that was being washed after every wear looked a bit lighter, but it was still very much visible.
T-Shirts washed after 5-8 wears worked and performed well for us during our experiment. The deciding factors for putting them in wash were smell, sweat and heavy stains. Smaller stains such as a drop of pasta sauce or pop corn salt or dirt from a hike was manageable by a quick damp cloth wipe or a quick shake. We found that many stains can be spot treated and did’t need to be washed to remove the stain.
We tested 10 cotton T-Shirsts included whites and different colors 1) 5 T-Shirsts were washed after every wear 2) The other five were washed on an average after 5-8 wears. We found that the T-Shirsts that were washed after 5-8 wears had colors more original to when purchased. The shape of the T-Shirt was also much better overall than the more frequently washed T-Shirts. The V neck T-shirts took a beating with Wash at every wear practice. Overall we felt good wearing a T-Shirt after 5-8 wears.
A quiet celebration took place in our hearts at the end of this experiment. We learned that if you increase the use of clothing by two years, it cuts its combined carbon, waste and water footprint by 80%. This experiment has changed our mindset. This was not only a big plus on Maximizing the dollar spend but also keep wearing our favorite clothing longer. As a result we noticed that our new purchases are cut by half.
Eliminating wash in half was the way to go for us – washing less slowed down the fading of color and aging of the clothing we experimented on. Our habit of quick assessment made it clear that most times the clothing just needed to be aired and shaken out properly to be good for another wear. Take the load off both the laundry basket and your wallet! One small step with a big impact. Saving Up To Carbon Footprint by 80% & Cut Laundry bills Up To 50%.
Sign up for our newsletter and you'll get new content delivered by email weekly.
