Laundry Reduction Experts Reveal Whether It’s OK to Wear Sweaty Sportswear

There are several good reasons to wash your clothes less often – they last longer, it’s good for the environment, and using a washing machine can be expensive. Also The Guardian writes that you will also have to spend less time doing laundry.

“Before you get down to practical joining the anti-laundry movement, try to think a little. “What is your criterion that it is time for clothes to be washed?” said Richard Blackburn, Professor of Sustainable Materials at the University of Leeds.

“Do you smell? Do you see dirt? Or do you just wash clothes every time out of habit? The professor pointed out that at the same time we do not wash bed linen every day, although it touches our body for many hours.

Orsola de Castro, fashion designer and author of The Last Favorite Clothes, pointed out, “The washing machine is not an extension of your wardrobe.”

Meanwhile, N.J. Stevenson, a fashion historian, offers a thought experiment: What did people do when they didn’t have washing machines or dry cleaners? “They would have one good woolen suit that needed to be cleaned and aired; it was never erased.”

Also, think about how dirty you are under your clothes: “We wash so much anyway,” Blackburn says. “Most people take a shower or bath once a day. Most of us do things where, frankly, we hardly sweat. We don’t get dirty and it’s not good to be super clean. We live with this wonderful microbiome of bacteria on our skin that helps to have healthy skin.”

Blackburn says he would happily wear the socks more than once. On De Castro: “If I notice my underwear is clean, if it looks okay, I don’t put it in the car.” She revealed that she often hand-washes her underwear when she takes a shower, which requires minimal effort.

Some people never wash their bras – is it advisable?

It’s common to think that “never” is too much, but “I definitely wash my bras less often than my underpants because they get less dirty,” says de Castro. Underwire bras last longer the less often you wash them, due to the complexity of the construction and the fragility of the underwire.

Should I wear fitness clothes more than once?

Some of the expert disagreements here concern the very concept of “fitness”: de Castro calls it “the biggest oxymoron in the history of clothing – clothes that we wear supposedly in order to be in shape, to be in contact with our bodies and with nature. They are made from lycra and polyester. This means that every time you wear them, every time you sweat and pant, you are breathing plastic. I would only wear cotton and wash it only after sweating a lot.”

Blackburn has nothing against polyester, on the contrary, he approves of its ability to wick away sweat. “If I run in a polyester tank top, especially in the summer, it definitely needs to be washed. .But if I go to yoga, then the same top will be absolutely fine. So first I’ll wear it to yoga, and then I’ll run and do the laundry.”