Wear & Wear Before Wash
Since July is almost over, we’ll be taking down the water poll in a couple of days. Please take it if you haven’t. It’s in the sidebar.
In glancing at the poll results, I’m a little surprised that only four voters have said that they wear clothes more than once before washing. But we did include that pesky “At least 5 of the above” answer, so maybe that accounts for part of it.
You know I’m curious though.
If you don’t wear your clothes more than once before washing, what are your reasons? Of course, many kids get their clothes too dirty to be recycled, so I’m mostly talking adults or older kids here.
Here’s what I do:
Not to say this system is perfect… Once I wear something, I place it in a different part of my closet so that I know it’s already been worn once. I also try to remove cat hair with a brush. If I only wore something for a couple of hours, I always wear it again before washing. (Since I work from home, I often change back into comfortable lazy clothes as soon as I get home.) In general, I wear clothes two to three times before washing.
However, if it’s stinky hot outside, the clothes get washed. If I spent a lot of time in a public place or doctor’s office, I feel compelled to wash my clothes instead of re-wearing them. I’m a germ freak in that way. I’m also a little messy, so about once or twice a week I spill food on my shirt. Not everything gets worn more than once, but I try.
Do you have a system to keep track of when it’s time to wash your clothes, or do you only wear once?
Image via MorgueFile.
Tags: recycle clothes, washing machine habits, water bill, water conservation
14 opinions for Wear & Wear Before Wash
DH
Jul 30, 2008 at 7:56 am
If I spill on it, it gets washed, but I will wear it until the end of the day, unless I’m going out. Underwear gets washed after it’s worn - no matter how clean it looks :). If the armpits smell it gets washed. If it is work around the house clothes, I will put it off to the side and wear it as work around the house clothes more than once if it’s stil relatively clean because no one is going to see it anyway.
Carrie
Jul 30, 2008 at 10:35 am
I’m really surprised by the poll results so far!
My husband and I both wear things more than once (or in the case of jeans several times) before washing. The only thing that always gets washed is underwear! ;-)
Peggy
Jul 30, 2008 at 10:41 am
LOL Carrie & DH. I wash my underwear each time too!
: ) Just felt the need to say that…
DH- I have some work around the house clothes too. They’re usually ones that got some kind of weird stain I couldn’t get out, like pear juice.
Jodi Plume
Jul 30, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Shirts I tend to not wear more than once, aside from my nightshirts. Jeans, they’ll get worn more than once (but I don’t “do” jeans in the summer). Shorts I sometimes, not always will wear more than once before washing. Underwear is a one time wearing before hitting the hamper. LOL My son cna go 3 days and never changed his clothes.. unless I realize he’s been wearing the same thing for 3 days. LOL My daughter has a few pair of shorts she LOVES for around the house and these are usually the only 3 she wears weekly, unless we go somewhere.
DramaMama
Jul 30, 2008 at 2:25 pm
At our house we have a series of hooks for clothes we wear more than once. That, or in the case of my son’s room, he has a crate by his bed where we have half-dirty clothes, mostly play clothes he can throw on by himself in the morning. If I can avoid him opening the drawers, it saves me 2 ways - he doesn’t get it all out to ‘look’ before selecting and he doesn’t wear something new when there’s half-dirty stuff. Yeah, it’s weird to think about wearing stuff only once. I feel like I’m doing a lot of laundry for 3 people already, I can’t imagine what it would be like if we only wore stuff once!
Ginny
Jul 30, 2008 at 4:48 pm
I always wear jeans several times/shorts as well. T-shirts I usually wear twice & sweatshirts 2 to 3 times. Tank tops I almost always wear only once, no real reason other then summer & they are tighter/closer to my skin, LOL. Never said any of my reasoning was logical.
Before worrying about the environment, I’ve done this just to make clothes last longer.
kisha
Jul 31, 2008 at 1:15 am
Since I am the only one that does laundry I know which clothes are dirty/clean. Jeans get worn a couple of times before they get washed, even for my 3yr unless she has been in the dirty or something at school. Tops are always only worn once. To many spills and what-not on them.
Katie
Jul 31, 2008 at 2:13 am
When I worked as an infant teacher, I washed my clothes after one wear–those babies get you super dirty and stinky super fast. Now I’m only caring for one baby (for the time being) and am stuck in the habit of only wearing my clothes once before wash.
Hmm now you’ve got me thinking, i used to wear my jeans and stuff 2-3 times before washing them. Of course that was also when I had to pay to get my laundry done. The convenience of a washer/dryer in your home makes it all to easy to just toss it in.
Robin
Jul 31, 2008 at 2:18 pm
We have rules in the house:
jeans - at least twice. That’s usually all the boys can get out of them. My husband and I can usually go longer. Sometimes my husband will come to me and say “I’ve been wearing the same jeans all week - aren’t you proud of me.”
the boys pajamas must be worn at least three nights in a row
other things get looked over to see if they can be worn again
And, of course, underwear - just once
Rebecca (Green Baby Guide)
Jul 31, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I wear most things more than once. Things like wool sweaters (that are always worn over a shirt) I might NEVER wash. But what about towels? I personally would re-use a towel as long as it has dried between uses, but I know many people use towels once before washing. (Wait–was this a Treehugging Family post at one point?)
Peggy
Jul 31, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Well, looks like we all agree on the underwear issue.
: )
Seems like more of you prefer wearing pants more than once over shirts. As messy as I am, I get that. But I do usually wear shirts more than once unless I feel they got stinky. Have I mentioned I HATE summer?
DramaMama, that hook method sounds like a great time-saving device with the little ones.
Rebecca, we did talk about towels here.
http://www.treehuggingfamily.com/one-small-step-hang-that-towel/
Julie F
Jul 31, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Underwear-once. No way is it going on again. I’m preggers and we all know about sneezing, laughing, and whatnot. Sorry for the TMI ;-)
Other than that, if a spill can’t be rinsed in th sink or taken out with a Tide pen asap, it gets washed.
Anything else, it gets washed if it smells even a tiny bit. I don’t have time to wash every day, nor would I because of my thing about wasting water. I can’t trek my herd of dirtmonkeys to the basement every little bit to wash, dry, and fold.
I’m not sure that I really have a system, except that my bathroom has a dresser, hooks, and a bar in it for putting things that have been worn.
Nicole J.
Aug 8, 2008 at 8:30 pm
We wear pants more than once, except dress pants that just never look nice after wearing them once (we don’t wear these often). My 2 year old’s clothes get washed almost always after one wash, except pajamas. We get two wears or more out of those. Sweaters rarely get washed or dry cleaned, rarely do they need it. I wear around the house clothes and pajamas until they are funky.
My mother taught me these clothing and labor saving techniques along time ago. It definitely helps your clothing last longer and it saves time, energy, water and money.
Dad G
Nov 17, 2008 at 10:42 am
I avoid washing clothes for severeal reasons. It uses a lot of processed water, pollutes the environment with a lot of soap, it costs me money, takes me away from more pleasant activities, and it wears out the clothes! Wipe off spots with a dampened towel corner, cover up odors with essential oils (like Patchouly). I might have to run them through the water-saving front door washer, using 1/3 the reccommended soap, once in a year to two years. I’d say I get an easy hundred (plus) wearings of a pair of jeans between washings. And I don’t have to worry about cleaning my underwear by avoiding the use of it altogether.
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