I see all sorts of answers online, but am not fully convinced. I tried finding some research on the longevity of clothes between wash and wash + dry. Considering that it dries for hours just the mechanical movement should damage the clothes I would assume?
By rules of physics it will damage it. Its rubbing against other clothes, its getting blasted with heat and it’s getting folded/bended over and over.
Damage is dependent on the material, but dor sure it wears them down.Have you ever cleaned out a lint trap? All that lint used to be part of the clothes.
Just wanted to comment this. The amount of lint can be quite shocking, but explains why e.g. t-shirts seem to get thinner over time…
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My lint is always the color of the clothes in the dryer.
If yours isn’t, I’d start by deep cleaning your machine. Take the back panel off and vacuum any lint throughout the whole thing.
If you think it’s burning it to make it black. You’ve got a potential fire in your future you need to address.
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Its the heat, mostly. If you use the low or very low/delicate settings, it will help.
I find that there is no benefit from using medium or high heat. It just shrinks my clothes. Low/delicate doesn’t and I haven’t noticed any damage.
Other trick: wash and dry pants inside out to avoid fading. Also, this stuff only applies to fabrics that are dryer safe, obviously
Washing clothes defnetely damages your clothes. If you want your clothes to last as long as possible only wash them when they need them not just because you’ve worn them for a day. Also you can air them out instead of washing them to reduce the amount of wash cycles.
either that or get gentler machines. i have an impeller driven washer and portable dryer that doesn’t ridiculously hot and my clothes has lasted for literal decades now.
it also helps being naked 99% of the time too. lol
This, the process of washing clothing degrades it, in the washer and dryer. As well yes, you don’t need to wash something because you wore it once save for undergarments.
Replace your undergarments everyday because they will absorb the most sweat and oil from your body as well as any other material. That leaves external causes of soiling which are easy to mitigate. So you can wear a single pair of pants easily for a week. You replace your undershirt every 2-3 days and can wear an over shirt for a week as well. Just that people notice shirts more often so rotate your top.
Realistically, unless you’re in a profession where external soiling of clothing is high, you only need to do laundry once every 2 weeks deal. This save money, water, and reduces waste water with harsh chemicals in it.
I have never worn undershirts. (I think in Australia we call them singlets), should I? I find it particularly annoying in the warmer months when it’s 30C+ when I really need to stay cool.
I only wear undershirts in the winter months and under work shirts. It’s uncomfortable for certain in warmer weather. Don’t take what I said as a bible but as guidelines that you don’t need to one and done all your clothes.
It depends on the fabric. A lot of synthetic clothes are now made to do well in the dryer. But if it’s 100% cotton, it can be permanently ruined in the first dry.
I only wear cotton. It’s taking a long time for me to notice a difference in size/thickness but that prob depends a lot on the type of dryer and clothes you have. However, I still prefer leaking cotton into the environment instead of microplastics
I mean literally the same machine as a rock grinder, generated heat and tumbling items smacking into each other.
But like they are soft. And if you don’t use as much heat it is even gentler, which is why the driers that act as a dehumidifier without heat are even better better.
Yes, I once lived in an apartment where the dryer would sometimes snag my clothes on the edge of the spinning part and they would get these spots at the point where they got caught that were stained black and stretched out or ripped.
The way I’ve seen people around me use the dryer, for sure. High heat will ruin clothes more than anything else, especially if it continues to run after everything had dried out.
Back in university, we had timed dryers that could only do either high heat or tumble dry low for an hour. Rooms were too humid and cramped to air dry. Of course, I wasn’t going to spend more money waiting for low heat to do its work. Clothes came out bone dry and metal zippers scalding hot. Only the large towels held up, everything else noticeably faded and thinned over a couple years.
Night and day difference once I got my own place with a condenser dryer. It takes longer, but everything is just dry enough at the end of each cycle. It’s also a bit smaller so I have to air dry parts of larger loads, but either way, my clothes have held up much better ever since.
As others have said, both washers and dryers let clothes tumble around uncontrollably for hours at a time which can do varying levels of damage.
My best unscientific advice from doing both a lot is to keep load sizes small. Reduces the friction and theoretically reduces the drying time, which also reduces damage. Also, if drying tshirts with ink prints, flip them inside out to protect the ink.
I think it depends. I’m my experience, towels last longer if they get thrown in the dryer. Wouldn’t throw my cashmere sweater in there though, if I owned one. The quality of the clothes you own plays a part. And most of us tend to go for the bargain over quality.
I feel like this depends on your climate as well. If you have sufficient sunlight outside, why do you even have a dryer? If it’s humid and stuff takes forever to dry on its own, a dryer might prevent certain bacteria to build up in the fabric and thus expand longevity. Although any act of aggressively drenching the fabric in water and chemicals and then blow drying it ought to age it by default.
There’s no doubt that it’s more wear and tear on your clothes.
Like if I put on a pair of shorts I’m probably going to sit around in them for most of the day and then take them off before bed. Several hours in the drier where it’s hot and they’re rubbing around on everything is surely going to be the equivalent of many days worth of “wearing them”.
One round in the dryer is like wearing that garment 100 times.
I always thing about this as I hear my clothes bouncing around in there. I wonder how long one of those drying closets would take to earn itself back vs. a tumble dryer.
No more than wearing them does.
