Posted on 12/29/2023 3:39:38 PM PST by nickcarraway
There's a growing cohort of people who believe in washing clothes less – or not at all. Matilda Welin talks to the 'no-wash' and 'low-wash' believers.
Bryan Szabo and his team have spent hours poring over photos of well-worn jeans, including vintage fades with swathes of bleached fabric and high-contrast fades with knee-pit patterns of honeycomb as well as whiskers around the crotch area. Online, the team praises the community's top faders. "This crotch repair is crazy good!" they exclaim. Or: "Subtle and even shades... A near-perfect balancing of... fade patterns with spectacular blue tones." This last one is the winner. For this is the judging of a competition; the Indigo Invitational, where people from across the world wear raw denim jeans for a year. But the competitors are not only the top jeans faders in the world. They are also champions of something else: The denim low-wash. Since denim becomes softer when it’s soapy and wet, one of the keys to achieving high-contrast patterns is to avoid washing them. The strategy is followed by everyone from the members of a no-wash club to the CEO of Levi's.
For Szabo, the low-wash habit began when he bought his first pair of raw denim jeans in 2010. Travelling from his native Canada to Europe, he brought his jeans for the six-month trip. "It was a quirk about me that I had these stinky jeans," he tells BBC Culture. "They smelled awful." In Budapest he met his future wife, and the jeans became a character in their relationship. "My jeans would be in, like, a pile on the floor at the end of the bed," he remembers. "You walked into the room, you could smell [them]... I was very fortunate that my wife was as interested in me as she was."
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
I worked for a water department a few years and they got this bright idea to pass out water saving devices.
When we got to the next utility meeting they complained about revenue falling off, so whatever did they do??
Of course, we’ll just jack up the water rates, HURRAH!
Use less for the same price 😡
My jeans (sadly, Levis, because they fit correctly) need a wash when dirt accumulates, usually about every 15 wearings.
My Pendleton wool shirts go several years between dry cleanings, probably 20 or so wearings (I have a collection of 14 of them, including my grandfather’s from the 1960s). Hung loosely for a day, they give up all scent and smell like nothing. I wear a long sleeved thermal t shirt underneath that soaks up all the deodorant and human smell.
I have a few wool coats that have never been washed, including my grandfather’s custom made Wyoming shearling from the 1970s.
Yesterday, it took fully four flushes of my low flow toilette to take care of business.
That’s the way people used to do things ... they had all kinds of washable cotton and linen and wool flannel undies to protect their good clothes. It makes sense.
In construction you need to wash your clothes or you’ll stink, so sorry, this Deplorable family won’t join the no wash movement.
Why is it that every conceivable stupid idea is having a burst of popularity these days?
“They would probably smell wrong.”
Ya THINK?
“Whiskers are the lines formed by wrinkling”
I’m so glad you explained that! When I read “whiskers around the crotch” it sounded beyond disgusting.
I usually wear the same jeans for a week or so before changing to another pair. It’s more from laziness.
The article talks about smell. A day in the sun would eliminate that without washing.
I had a sleeping bag. It was brand new when I took it in a weeklong backpack trek in 90 deg. 90% rh every day. To say it reeked at the end would be an understatement. I considered throwing it away.
Washing a sleeping bag will damage it often beyond redemption. Instead I laid it on the grass for a couple days. The smell was gone.
I used that bag for 15 years and never once washed it.
I get that people have weird fetishes but it is puzzling why this and other articles treat this as a reasonable fashion form of fashion and style.
At the apt I live at we got a used Speed Queen Ultra High Efficiency Front Load Commercial Washer and I see hardly any water in use. Looks like the clothes are made wet then tumbled thru a gallon of water. I prefer the top loaders and lots of water.
Fascinating, thanks. Never thought of that.
Overall uses 11.7 gallons. The wash cycle is 39 minutes.
https://www.ajmadison.com/cgi-bin/ajmadison/SFNBCRSP113TW02.html
frequent washing of clothes leads to the fabric being worn down.....
take your physically clean clothes....not underwear or socks...but sweaters, shirts, etc.....shake them out, and hang them outside to air out...infact, hang all your clothes outside even after you wash them....not using the dryer really helps to keep your clothes in good condition and plus, your clothes smell wonderful and you save on electricity.
me too...exactly what I do in spring/summer/fall....even winter if its sunny and dry I’ll hang a couple of shirts out there, on hangers...
Yup, even in winter if it works out.
I like the ability to hang out the heavy stuff like towels and denim. The pants I turn inside out as they dry better that way.
Plus, (for liberal folks) think of how environmentally friendly it is. Far less electricity or propane/natural gas required for drying.
Stuff like sleeping bags, winter coats, and comforters/quilts are best washed in front loaders. The agitation from top loaders is what ruins them.
I wash them once a year on one of the hottest, driest days in summer so I can line dry them.
I just bought a new pair of Levi’s. (Probably in 8 years or so.) Had to buy them online. Looking at the website they said something like “You don’t need to wash your jeans after every day wearing them. Wash them when they start to smell. Many people go 10 days between washes.”
I’m not so sure I go 10 days, but I will give them a sniff now and try to make them last longer.
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