To not wear clean clothes everyday

[Happyhippy45]

Clothes are not "dirty," they don't smell and I don't want to wash them. I hang them up on a peg/chair to air and wear another couple of times over the course of the week.
DH doesn't understand this and thinks it's a bit minky.
Talking about tops, jeans etc......not pants and socks. Bras are a whole nother subject.

I wear everything except my knickers for a few days, always have, always will.

Our sheets take two loads (five of us) and towels another - and we are towel reusers - so someone who does three loads a week must either be overloading the machine or have far fewer in the house.

A typical week for me would be:

3 clothes loads on Monday
2 sheets loads
1 towels load
2 clothes loads on Friday

Used to have another two cloth nappy loads.

Sometimes cleaning sofa covers, cushion covers, cat throws/blankets, etc.

So 12 loads sounds like a busy washing week but 3 loads ludicrously little. Unless you have a big American style 10 kg machine?

Question the people that are adamant that everything has to be washed daily/ often: what do you do with dresses or trousers that can only be dry cleaned?

Do you take them to dry clean after one or two wears? That would be very expensive!

It's only Tuesday and so far I have washed- pet bedding and all the throws on the sofa. One load of mucky sports gear, washed some towels too to bump up the load. One load of bedding and one load of clothes.

I want a household where I can get away with 4 loads a week!!

Some completely disproportionate comments on the evils of tumble dryers on here... A quick Google shows average Brit is responsible for 9,700kg of CO2 per annum. A tumble dryer used once every other day comes in at 160 kg, which assuming a family of 4 is 40kg per person, or less than 0.5% of the average person's carbon footprint. So, yes, we all need to be aware of energy usage, but on the basis that I doubt all those castigating the use of tumble dryers live in mud huts wearing grass skirts and sleeping on moss, I think th old adage 'people in glass houses etc' is apt.

Point well maid banana < tumble drier is on at this very moment!>

I always change knickers & hosiery daily. Clean top daily but trousers 2 days and skirts about 3 - 4 wears. Cardis 2-3 wears.

*Question the people that are adamant that everything has to be washed daily/ often: what do you do with dresses or trousers that can only be dry cleaned?

Do you take them to dry clean after one or two wears? That would be very expensive!*

I have next to nothing that needs dry cleaned because of where I live. But things that do need dry cleaned are sent the day after I wear them. I never have dirty laundry of any kind hanging around. It's all seen to daily. Not that there's much nowadays and what there is can just mean one load and some handwashing. But even when I had 5 children and a husband at home it was all done dailiy. It was just one of those daily tasks.

Is it expensive to dry clean, and I do when I'm in the U.K. and wearing different clothes? I don't know. Because surely you only buy what you can afford to have cleaned?

Nope Gabilan you are right, and I appear to be the only person giving needless exaggeration on this thread 😂. The question was about washing clothes daily, the po might have a child who routinely vomits on them, has a job that involves getting mucky or might have an odour issue. Abu using the tumble drier she might not have the heating on as much, never drink a cup of tea thereby not boiling her kettle, use a bike to get to work, not own a car but the presumption is that because you use a tumble drier you are helping towards environmental destruction, strangely though is you own an electric car you aren't.......at least that's what the owner of that type of car has been heard saying around here 😂 not entirely sure that she gets that electricity is also quite often sourced from fossil fuels.

There appear to be enough non td and constant washing posters here that it probably equals itself out tbf.

Our washing machine goes on about once a day. I don't wear shirts and I don't buy white things so we don't need to separate colours and I never iron anything.

I don't have a tumble dryer so if DH or I liked to wash everything after one wear it would be a nightmare trying to dry it all.

I wear layers, bottom layer worn once layers above that I'll often wear three or four times if they smell ok. Jeans are washed every few weeks. Cardigans every few months. All depending on what I do whilst wearing them of course - if I spend hour running round in the park with ds then what I'm wearing will go in the wash. I try and do most of the washing on the weekend with only two or three loads in the week.

I do shower every day but only shampoo my hair twice a week as I have problems using most shampoos.

I appear to be the only person giving needless exaggeration on this thread

I don't know why it is people resort to binaries so quickly when they're trying to dismiss arguments. It may be that other people are also exaggerating, but I'd be here all day if I started on that.

It's a thread about washing. And people mentioned tumble drying stuff. Other people queried the environmental impact of washing everything after one wear especially if you then tumble dry it. Had it been a thread about how to lower your carbon footprint, I'm sure people would have focussed on other things as well. But it isn't, it's about washing.

In our house there's me, DP and DD (12). On average I do 5 loads a week, which when you think about it equals a load per person plus another two loads for towels, bedding (only changed here roughly every 10 days), tea towels, cat blankets, other general stuff like table cloth and napkins (from Sunday), wash cloths, bathroom mats etc. It seems a lot when you think about it but then maybe not. It does make me think though, back in the 70's my mother used to drag out her twin tub once or possibly twice a week (it took bleedin ages) and she had three under 4 at one point. We must have worn clothes more then.

I doubt all those castigating the use of tumble dryers live in mud huts wearing grass skirts and sleeping on moss

No, but they might be taking steps to try to cut down excess. It's an odd assumption that somehow you need to have a carbon footprint close to zero, before you can discuss anyone else's footprint at all. Again, it's those binaries, instead of considering all the myriad of possibilities in between. It's a thread about washing. Reducing the amount of washing and drying we do would seem to be one way to help reduce carbon outputs a bit. It's not like it takes much effort. Quite the reverse in fact.

This might not be about carbon footprints or tumble driers but it has certainly proved yet again that AIBU is a hot house of inflamed opinions. Also that conversations aren't stagnant and move onto different areas.

For those people who like to wash their bras everyday this is a great solution and far more environmentally friendly than some - one sink of water and tada - you can use it with wool too (no rinse) google it and you'd find a supplier in the UK I'm sure!
no rinse laundry soap

Looks interesting, Pooh, thanks.

And that sentence probably showed the importance of spelling and punctuation.

CremeEggThief, in response to your wondering, yes! I shower at least once a day, without fail, Often it is twice a day. I put fresh clothes on after every shower, apart from jeans or cardigans, they get worn 2 or 3 times x

I sweat lots and walk (very quickly, always running late) between 1 and 2 hours a day. Yes I have to wash things I wear once. TBH by the time I finish the school run my underwear is wet and my pits are iffy. Yes I do use deodorant/ antiperspirant (mitchum) but clearly they are no match for my hormones

This thread has some of the most sanctimonious, unjustified judgeyness I have seen on mumsnet . I have a tumble dryer and use it . I live on the north wales coast and we don't get that many days in the year where laundry will actually dry outside. .. maybe a dozen or so... so most days the bloody laundry is still damp after a bloody day on the line. So time-consuming and you still end up making the house damp with stuff drying on the clothes horse... I am so grateful that we have things like washing machines and dryers. I have had to do my laundry by hand in buckets and it's the pits.

If you really are that concerned about the world running out of energy get an engineering degree, start researching and Save The World.

SarahLou, we kind of approach the same problem in different ways then. Neither of us like putting worn clothes on after a shower, so your solution is change clothes every day and mine is shower every other day . I have a 7kg washing machine, an 8 kg tumbler, a winged clothes airer, a long outdoor washing line, all for 2 people, and enough clothes to go for 3-4 weeks, wearing once, and yet I still can't bring myself to only wear most clothes once. I feel it's such a waste. I think it stems from childhood when Mum would make it clear she resented all the laundry we generated and I would wear the same school uniform all week, without even thinking about it.

I wash clothes when they are dirty (either smell or visible dirt) with the exception of underwear, socks, vests, camisoles, tshirts and shirts. In the summer we wear less but wash it more frequently.

I don't put already worn clothes back in drawers or wardrobe though as storing worn clothes quickly make everything else stale. I keep worn but not yet dirty clothes on a chair and every week or so sort through it and anything I'm not going to reWear goes into the laundry. Clothes wear out much faster with repeated washing, not to mention the waste of water for washing things which don't need washing and the time taken. Expensive denim should be washed as little as possible.

With 2 kids I probably do a load of laundry at least every day and several at the weekend plus towels and sheets and bibs etc. Would be absolute madness for many reasons to wash things after one wear and we would need even more clothes than the mountain we have already.

With a weaning baby I am just embracing spot washing rather than laundering a procession of otherwise clean items.

Underwear, socks, tights, leggings or tight trousers, t shirts- basically anything likely to be made stinky by being squished into armpits or feet or nether regions- one wear only. Other things get the "angle visible marks or bad smell" test. And I honestly do notice if something smells (good way to check is sniff it right after a shower the next day I find) due to my ridiculously over keen sense of smell. I'm a bit by some of the "who cares if it's overuse of our resources and contributing to environmental disaster I wash and tumble dry everything after one use" there were on this thread.

I also have a tumble dryer and use it. Living in a small flat with 2 kids full of damp washing is would destroying and miserable and clothes that haven't dried properly smell far worse than clothes worn for a few days. (I do use the washing line on sunny days when we are home but most drying is done overnight after putting on a wash when I get in from work).

(Auto correct failure - should be soul destroying not would destroying but you get the idea).

Oh and yes I do wash coats and jackets several times each winter... because they smell of sweat!

If you are lucky enough to finish your day smelling of roses don't judge those of us who are Always Hot.

Gabilan

I have a tumble dryer, and I use it for most of my drying. Why? Firstly, I work during the day so I can't readily dry clothes outside, and the English weather tends to get in the way when I may have the inclination. Secondly, my experience of putting clothes on airers during a period meant a room given over to drying clothes with all the unpleasant dampness associated with that, or I'd dry on the radiators suppressing the temperature meaning id turn the heating up/having heating on for longer (hardly great for energy consumption).

Almost everything we do living in a developed country has a carbon implication - much of it entirely frivolous - so I'm not sure why tumble drying, which isn't exactly frivolous, had got a hard time..... Or do you berate people for holidaying abroad, having baths and going for a Sunday afternoon drive!