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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsThe next big thing in fashion? Not washing your clothes
This new flock of wash-less brands are capitalizing on the convenience of not having to launder your clothes a lot, which is particularly useful if youre traveling or crunched for time. But theyre also making an environmental argument: Over-washing clothes is not good for the planet. Washing machines account for 17% of our home water usage, and a quarter of a garments carbon footprint over the course of its lifetime comes from cleaning it. And yet, washing machine company AEG estimates that 90% of clothes washed arent actually dirty enough to be thrown in the laundry basket.
Part of this has to do with the fact that laundry detergent brands have convinced consumers that they need to wash their clothes frequently, perhaps even after every wear, to be clean and hygienic. For instance, many laundry detergent ads show parents washing their childrens muddy and messy clothes, suggesting that good parenting involves doing a lot of laundry. Mac Bishop, who founded Wool & Prince, saw this firsthand. His first job after college was working for the marketing department of Unilever, which produces dozens of laundry detergent brands around the world. The only way to grow as a laundry detergent brand is to make customers feel like they need to keep washing their clothes more and more, he says.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90359188/the-next-big-thing-in-fashion-not-washing-your-clothes?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Sounds good to me! I don't like washing clothes at all. If I can go two weeks wearing the same pair of underwear... Heaven!
AJT
(5,240 posts)ewwww...
50 Shades Of Blue
(10,096 posts)customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)in my stomach.
My second, is grunge making a comeback?
Skittles
(153,298 posts)it would take more convincing for me
ProudLib72
(17,984 posts)Come on Skittles, there's a celebrity endorsement you can take to the bank!
Skittles
(153,298 posts)lol, what a twerp
csziggy
(34,139 posts)"Sweat itself is clean. Its when it gets absorbed in clothing that it begins to attract bacteria and smell bad. So the key is finding materials that dont trap sweat.
They have not smelled my underarms after I put in a full day of work on the farm in a Florida summer. My armpits stink and anything that has been in contact with them stinks. That is in addition to the literal shit that would be all over my clothes after shoveling out two barns.
Maybe for city dwellers who live much of their lives in controlled environments and who do not do serious manual labor, not washing clothes is OK. But when I was running my farm, the clothes I peeled off after working all day were not fit to stay inside the house unless they were washed immediately!
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)there's a lot of perspiring going on, and daily washing yourself, if only a sponge bath to vital areas, is needed
to combat heat rash, various forms of jock itch in various places, esp. the feet.
I am indoors most of the time now, so can wear the same dress a few days, but not without daily body washing in between showers.
csziggy
(34,139 posts)Same here - I now longer am physically capable of working on the farm but I still need to wash every 24-36 hours.
MuseRider
(34,136 posts)and I spend half the rest of my time doing anything and everything I can to make certain that when I go out away from my farm I don't stink. I know too many people who I run into in a grocery or other place and I smell them coming, especially the chicken farmers.
I like the idea behind this but I will be washing clothes and my body as frequently as I do now for the rest of my life. That and wearing just a touch of perfume, sorry folks. I like it, it makes me feel clean and a little less like a farm hand again and I never hear complaints.
ProudLib72
(17,984 posts)I don't wash them. I think they would actually damage the machine. Eventually, they will just get tossed.
democratisphere
(17,235 posts)Sniff-sniff.
Why not. Everything else is regressing.
Kali
(55,031 posts)me = fashion!
procon
(15,805 posts)worn next to the skin gets laundered after every use. C'mon people... You know we sweat right, and we also leak from various orifices and in all the most unmentionable places, and those smells - un huh, you with me now - do not disappear. We are also oily (yeah, that stinks too!) And we shed flakey bits of dead - eeew! - skin and hairs from everywhere.
Maybe some outer garments can skip a laundry day or two. In days gone by we had undergarments designed to protect our nice clothes so they didn't need frequent washes. But when was the last time you bought a slip or chamisole, and don't forget those dress-shields!
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)And the "lost" 3K liters of water, does that just disappear from the planet?
I always use less than half of the detergent recommended, and my clothes come out fine.
3catwoman3
(24,109 posts)...is making me squirm even to think about it. No way.
ProudLib72
(17,984 posts)All kidding about stench aside, merino wool is awesome stuff. If you have the opportunity to try on something made out of merino wool, by all means do it. If I had enough money, everything I own would be made out of it. The trouble is that it's really expensive.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,927 posts)I wash my clothes after one wearing.
What I find a bit weird and somewhat distressing is that I'm discovering that a lot of women in my age group (I'm 70) don't take a shower every day and don't necessarily put on clean clothes every day.
I can tell you precisely the three times in recent years that I didn't take a shower, although I did put on clean clothes. Two days in a row earlier this year I couldn't shower because my hot water heater died. Luckily it got replaced after two days. Had it been any longer I'd have asked my neighbor across the street if I could shower in her place. I know she'd have been fine with that.
The other was about three weeks ago. I took the train from New Mexico to Kansas City, and even though I was in the sleeper car where there's a shower, I was arriving in KC at 7am, and I just didn't get up early enough to shower. But I did change my clothes. Nonetheless, I felt a bit grubby.
The two days without a shower felt awful. And I don't do physical labor that gets me sweaty or dirty. But my day doesn't start until I've had a cup of coffee and a shower. And put on clean clothes.
Washing clothes doesn't wear them out if you use cold water and wash on the gentle cycle. And when you consider it's the height of fashion to buy jeans that are so tattered even the homeless wouldn't want them, well I just wouldn't be all that concerned that washing un-tattered clothes will be a problem.
At the very least change your underwear daily.
Oh, and for what it's worth, I've been washing my clothes after one wearing for some decades now.
3catwoman3
(24,109 posts)...when circumstances warrant it.
Some people need their morning coffee. I need my morning shower.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)that I would never allow myself to be that smelly old man. Working in retail you deal with a lot of them, old folks who just smell musty and stale and frankly kinda gross.
Not gonna go there. And yeah, fresh clothes daily. Because anything else is fucking vile.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,927 posts)Our sense of smell does seem to diminish with age, and if you start skipping showers and washing clothes, or at the very least changing your underwear, pretty soon you'll be a smelly old fart.
Skittles
(153,298 posts)seriously, it would make me feel, as you say, "grubby" to skip my shower
Generic Brad
(14,276 posts)Years ago my daughter went through a phase where she stopped washing her hair because influencers on the internet were claiming it kept the essential oils on her hair. Man, did her head stink! I suspect not washing clothes would have the same effect.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)to teach you just how gross the smell of scalp oil can be. I cant wear hats because they get so funky so quickly.
LastDemocratInSC
(3,657 posts)PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,927 posts)LastDemocratInSC
(3,657 posts)At least I hope he was joking.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)Clean clothes, people. Clean clothes and daily showers or gtfo.
benld74
(9,911 posts)ProudLib72
(17,984 posts)Yeah, luckily for me, my sister lived a few miles away when I was in college. I would sneak in while she was at work and do laundry.