I'm down to just a few sweat shirts and over shirts from the 80s, but they are hanging in there. Both the colors and the fabric. When the subject comes up with friends who ask about a particular shirt I joke, "The cotton was tougher back then". Recently, I've had jeans, shirts, and even socks that didn't make it through a single summer.
Is anyone else freaked out about cleaning their dryer's lint filter given all the new fabric materials? I'm putting together a dryer-vac system to keep it from billowing into the air of our small laundry room.
Yeah, I've started being a bit concerned about inhaling all the tiny plastic fibers every time I clean the filters and wondering what could be doing to my lunges.
There's still good fabrics out there you just have to pay for them. I've mostly replaced my wardrobe now with natural undyed cottons and wools from the likes of "unbleached apparel" and "industry of all nations". There is cotton grown in new mexico, socks spun in north carolina. "Filson" makes a few things in Seattle. Don't skip the stuff made in Peru or India neither.
I don't have any clothes as old as yours though for sure, but line drying generally helps your clothes last longer. I'm so glad I live in Colorado. It's a warm winter, but it takes like 3 hours to dry stuff on the line (especially synthetics). Of course that means all my synthetic fibers are literally billowing into the air I guess. Still, we've been going without a dryer for about five years now and I've had no regrets.
It has been ages since I had clothes shrink on me. To the point that I had assumed something must have gotten better in modern dryers. Is that not the case?
Edit: Quickly searching, this appears to be the case? Specifically modern moisture sensing dryers that stop appropriately goes a long way to never having something shrink on you.
I wish I lived in your world. It is very rare I find a long-sleeved garment whose sleeves are long enough, and it usually only takes a wash or two for them to become too short :(
I should have been clear, I also expected that there were changes to the clothes. I was just more surprised after we ran some sweaters through the cycle on accident, only to find that they did just fine.
I still find it to be the case that most 100% cotton shirts shrink over time (even pre-shrunk) and have switched to blends just to get some more longevity out of them.
I've had the opposite problem where I hadn't had shrinking issues in years until I got a new LG dryer with one of those auto sensing modes that it defaults to. The "smart" feature is terrible. I had a number of shirts shrink on me because it sometimes goes absurdly overboard with the drying.
Once we figured out the problem and stopped using all of the smart features it started working fine. Unfortunately the interface really wants you to use the fancy modes and requires an annoying amount of steps to manually set a drying run. Easily the worst dryer UX I've ever had. I doubt I'll buy another LG appliance, although there are probably plenty of other offenders these days.
I think ours is an LG. Could be something faulty with the sensor in yours, if it is still newish, worth a support call to them to see if they can fix it.
I say it's the dryer too, more than the washer for a lot of fabrics.
You just have to figure with all that dryer lint after every single load that your items certainly aren't getting any bigger after giving off all those grams of fiber.
You can only imagine whether or not more or less fiber than that is being lost down the drain with your wash water each time.
It's not just moisture sensing. Modern dryers also use patterns to prevent shrinking in terms of reducing the heat and then bringing it back as opposed to a constant temperature until dry.
I think a lot of things use pre-shrunk fabric these days. I've got t-shirts that haven't shrunk, and t-shirts that have. Unfortunately a lot of band shirts bought at concerts fall into the latter :(.
I was just offering the amusing anecdote that I have a 30 year old shirt that doesn't shrink. I used to treat it with kids gloves to keep it from doing so.
Note that I fully understand it for the anecdotal weight that it has. That is, basically none. Is fun for conversation, but isn't intended to prove anything.
New clothes also tend to include synthetic fibers that seem to not shrink as much. 100% cotton, or especially wool garments will shrink if you’re not careful, but are becoming increasingly difficult to find.
I had thought this was the main driver, but we washed some of our nicer clothes and they came out just fine. I have a cashmere sweater we accidentally sent through the cycle that didn't shrink.
Her logic seems reasonable but stating that the fibers "return to their original crinkled state" is missing the fact that the fiber go through the process of spinning to improve tensile strength (as well as the options of making an infinite yarn from finite fibers by twisting them together). regardless to return to original "crinckled state" they need to overcome those forces as well as the forces of the geometry of the knit(on a different scale).
BTW Rayon is also made from cellulose, cellulose II. While Cellulose I(natural) is metastable it can be converted by disolving in lye to a stable form (beta-gllocouse molecolue chain goes from being parallel to being anti parllel which increases the # of hydrogen bonds as well as helping create a more stable 3d structure) which again improve tensile strength and resist wrinkles on a different scale.
I find clothes labels are way too conservative. Half of my stuff says don't dry, hand wash only, or cold wash on delicate.
Unless it's a particularly expensive or dry clean only, I just wash at 40 degrees "daily" programme, except for underwear, towels and bedding which go in at 60.
Most stuff is fine. On the rare occasion something gets ruined, I don't get that brand again.
I take the opposite approach: wash everything on the default setting and whatever survives (almost everything) is now confirmed safe for that setting. Keeps things simpler and has the advantage that you can cut of those scratchy labels that are always attached in the most uncomfortable places possible.
That seems to be a nonsensical generalization. A lot of symbols have the negative condition applied with an X. So if you applied it to "generic dry" it would mean do not dry. But it's reasonable when applied to a subset. For instance, do not tumble dry
You would think that, but there is an icon for not using a dryer. There is an icon for all forms of drying. On a clothes line, in the shade, "flat", ...
I am tall enough that shrinking t-shirts is a constant annoyance! (though I have to admit I haven't ever tried the 'conditioner and water' trick, even though I've heard of it before).
Low temperature washes and avoiding tumble dryers works. I've also noticed thicker material t-shirts seem to definitely shrink a lot less! Much thinner cottton t-shirts seem to shrink a lot more, my mental model is that there's less material so when it bunches together to it's "happy place", it ends up a lot smaller. I have no evidence for this though.
Any other tips from people here? Also, has anyone actually tried stretching with hair conditioner?
Hang-dry your tees. It's a slight annoyance vs just bombing everything into the dryer, but it's very worth it to not have sleeves that are too short. I usually hang mine on the shower's curtain rod to dry.
And frankly, this seems like less effort than trying to apply some hack to unshrink them after the damage is done.
My eye hit the "It’s not just hot water – here’s why" as one of the first things... em-dash, here's why... I smell the smelly smell, even though I'm not even opposed to it haha.
Denim and duck cotton tend to "break in" after a few wearings. This happens with a lot of cotton work clothes and also with a good pair of technical or work boots. They tend to mold themselves to your body shape. It doesn't happen at all with nylon work pants like the ones Carhartt makes.
tl;dr; you can't, cause the fibers are crinckled up in a lower energy state, but try soaking in 1 tablespoon of hair conditioner per liter of lukewarm water and stretch.
I'm down to just a few sweat shirts and over shirts from the 80s, but they are hanging in there. Both the colors and the fabric. When the subject comes up with friends who ask about a particular shirt I joke, "The cotton was tougher back then". Recently, I've had jeans, shirts, and even socks that didn't make it through a single summer.
Is anyone else freaked out about cleaning their dryer's lint filter given all the new fabric materials? I'm putting together a dryer-vac system to keep it from billowing into the air of our small laundry room.
Yeah, I've started being a bit concerned about inhaling all the tiny plastic fibers every time I clean the filters and wondering what could be doing to my lunges.
There's still good fabrics out there you just have to pay for them. I've mostly replaced my wardrobe now with natural undyed cottons and wools from the likes of "unbleached apparel" and "industry of all nations". There is cotton grown in new mexico, socks spun in north carolina. "Filson" makes a few things in Seattle. Don't skip the stuff made in Peru or India neither.
I don't have any clothes as old as yours though for sure, but line drying generally helps your clothes last longer. I'm so glad I live in Colorado. It's a warm winter, but it takes like 3 hours to dry stuff on the line (especially synthetics). Of course that means all my synthetic fibers are literally billowing into the air I guess. Still, we've been going without a dryer for about five years now and I've had no regrets.
It has been ages since I had clothes shrink on me. To the point that I had assumed something must have gotten better in modern dryers. Is that not the case?
Edit: Quickly searching, this appears to be the case? Specifically modern moisture sensing dryers that stop appropriately goes a long way to never having something shrink on you.
I wish I lived in your world. It is very rare I find a long-sleeved garment whose sleeves are long enough, and it usually only takes a wash or two for them to become too short :(
There have been changes in the manufacturing process to "pre-shrink" fabrics.
Similar improvements have been made to improve colorfastness. Mixing new reds and whites used to consistently produce pink. Not anymore.
Still happens sometimes, especially if you do warmer water.
I have some semi-recent pinkified cloths.
That said, washing everything on cold water and low temps in the dryer works pretty well at extending the life of cloths.
I should have been clear, I also expected that there were changes to the clothes. I was just more surprised after we ran some sweaters through the cycle on accident, only to find that they did just fine.
I still find it to be the case that most 100% cotton shirts shrink over time (even pre-shrunk) and have switched to blends just to get some more longevity out of them.
I had that issue but as it turns out I was just getting fatter
Lol, this happened to me the first time I started gaining weight in my early 30's.
As silly as this sounds, the same thing happened to me. I was getting pretty frustrated because all of my pants kept shrinking.. the truth hurt.
I had the same experience until this year, when a shirt I got in the airport on the way home from Philly suddenly became a present for my girlfriend.
I've had the opposite problem where I hadn't had shrinking issues in years until I got a new LG dryer with one of those auto sensing modes that it defaults to. The "smart" feature is terrible. I had a number of shirts shrink on me because it sometimes goes absurdly overboard with the drying.
Once we figured out the problem and stopped using all of the smart features it started working fine. Unfortunately the interface really wants you to use the fancy modes and requires an annoying amount of steps to manually set a drying run. Easily the worst dryer UX I've ever had. I doubt I'll buy another LG appliance, although there are probably plenty of other offenders these days.
I think ours is an LG. Could be something faulty with the sensor in yours, if it is still newish, worth a support call to them to see if they can fix it.
I say it's the dryer too, more than the washer for a lot of fabrics.
You just have to figure with all that dryer lint after every single load that your items certainly aren't getting any bigger after giving off all those grams of fiber.
You can only imagine whether or not more or less fiber than that is being lost down the drain with your wash water each time.
It's not just moisture sensing. Modern dryers also use patterns to prevent shrinking in terms of reducing the heat and then bringing it back as opposed to a constant temperature until dry.
I think a lot of things use pre-shrunk fabric these days. I've got t-shirts that haven't shrunk, and t-shirts that have. Unfortunately a lot of band shirts bought at concerts fall into the latter :(.
I tend to find that older (10+ years) t-shirts shrink a lot. Even if I don't wash them.
Same happens to me, but I don't think it's the T-shirts that are shrinking.
I literally have a t-shirt from 1997 that doesn't shrink in our machines. :D
I think you may not have fully appreciated the comment you replied to
I was just offering the amusing anecdote that I have a 30 year old shirt that doesn't shrink. I used to treat it with kids gloves to keep it from doing so.
Note that I fully understand it for the anecdotal weight that it has. That is, basically none. Is fun for conversation, but isn't intended to prove anything.
Earlier commenter was talking about getting fatter as they age. Not actual cloths shrinkage.
Ha! Ok, yeah, I definitely missed that aspect of the joke. :D
> Note that I fully understand it for the anecdotal weight that it has.
At this point I thought you were going for an ahem heavy-handed joke.
It's weird, I never had that problem yet suddenly my old clothes started shrinking a couple years ago too.
Might have been our new hangers.
Even cheap band t-shirts don't shrink in our dryer. I have sweaters that I am confident would have shrunk in the past, but do just fine here.
On that last, I almost forgot I had direct evidence. We visited a place that shrank some of our clothes that we had washed many times back home.
New clothes also tend to include synthetic fibers that seem to not shrink as much. 100% cotton, or especially wool garments will shrink if you’re not careful, but are becoming increasingly difficult to find.
I had thought this was the main driver, but we washed some of our nicer clothes and they came out just fine. I have a cashmere sweater we accidentally sent through the cycle that didn't shrink.
Her logic seems reasonable but stating that the fibers "return to their original crinkled state" is missing the fact that the fiber go through the process of spinning to improve tensile strength (as well as the options of making an infinite yarn from finite fibers by twisting them together). regardless to return to original "crinckled state" they need to overcome those forces as well as the forces of the geometry of the knit(on a different scale).
BTW Rayon is also made from cellulose, cellulose II. While Cellulose I(natural) is metastable it can be converted by disolving in lye to a stable form (beta-gllocouse molecolue chain goes from being parallel to being anti parllel which increases the # of hydrogen bonds as well as helping create a more stable 3d structure) which again improve tensile strength and resist wrinkles on a different scale.
I have the following printout in the laundry room. I haven't had any problems with shrinking or fading, etc.
https://www.ihateironing.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/07...
I find clothes labels are way too conservative. Half of my stuff says don't dry, hand wash only, or cold wash on delicate.
Unless it's a particularly expensive or dry clean only, I just wash at 40 degrees "daily" programme, except for underwear, towels and bedding which go in at 60.
Most stuff is fine. On the rare occasion something gets ruined, I don't get that brand again.
I take the opposite approach: wash everything on the default setting and whatever survives (almost everything) is now confirmed safe for that setting. Keeps things simpler and has the advantage that you can cut of those scratchy labels that are always attached in the most uncomfortable places possible.
If I have to choose anything but the default wash and dry setting, I'm not worthy of wearing it.
What the hell does "Do not dry" mean? You have to keep it moist forever?
That seems to be a nonsensical generalization. A lot of symbols have the negative condition applied with an X. So if you applied it to "generic dry" it would mean do not dry. But it's reasonable when applied to a subset. For instance, do not tumble dry
It probably means to air-dry (to not use a dryer)
You would think that, but there is an icon for not using a dryer. There is an icon for all forms of drying. On a clothes line, in the shade, "flat", ...
The Do Not Dry symbol is only used in conjunction with a Do Not Wash symbol, i.e. don't get this wet, and don't heat it.
Me and the wife have so many discussions about this :)
We have a lot of "shrinkage" in our house, that I am convinced is more due to both of us uhh "growing" rather than the clothes shrinking ;)
You can imagine, it's a delicate subject
I think it's definitely possible to gain weight between wash cycles when living in America.
I am tall enough that shrinking t-shirts is a constant annoyance! (though I have to admit I haven't ever tried the 'conditioner and water' trick, even though I've heard of it before).
Low temperature washes and avoiding tumble dryers works. I've also noticed thicker material t-shirts seem to definitely shrink a lot less! Much thinner cottton t-shirts seem to shrink a lot more, my mental model is that there's less material so when it bunches together to it's "happy place", it ends up a lot smaller. I have no evidence for this though.
Any other tips from people here? Also, has anyone actually tried stretching with hair conditioner?
Hang-dry your tees. It's a slight annoyance vs just bombing everything into the dryer, but it's very worth it to not have sleeves that are too short. I usually hang mine on the shower's curtain rod to dry.
And frankly, this seems like less effort than trying to apply some hack to unshrink them after the damage is done.
My eye hit the "It’s not just hot water – here’s why" as one of the first things... em-dash, here's why... I smell the smelly smell, even though I'm not even opposed to it haha.
It’s not an em-dash, but an en-dash. So it’s incorrectly used.
Team no dryer. I have been cold wash + line-drying for my whole adult life; works out. (Unless something is actually soiled; then hot)
I had the opposite problem recently. Where Levi's jeans expanded and loosened up after a couple of washes. What's the reason for that?
Denim and duck cotton tend to "break in" after a few wearings. This happens with a lot of cotton work clothes and also with a good pair of technical or work boots. They tend to mold themselves to your body shape. It doesn't happen at all with nylon work pants like the ones Carhartt makes.
That's probably not the washes but due to wear.
Just buy them slightly oversize and let them shrink down to the right size.
Difficult when the options are Medium and Large!
This also requires knowing how much it will shrink, and accurately gauging if I've left enough buffer when trying something on at the store.
Day 39585 of HN not knowing anything about selvedge denim, or other nice quality men’s fashion…
I'm sure some day we'll notice the consequences. Real soon now...
tl;dr; you can't, cause the fibers are crinckled up in a lower energy state, but try soaking in 1 tablespoon of hair conditioner per liter of lukewarm water and stretch.