To not wash all the clothes I took on holiday?

[Macaroni46]

This is a lighthearted thread.
Just returned from holiday with a friend. We were discussing washing (like you do!).
She said that she washes all the clothes she took on holiday regardless of whether they were worn or not, because they're dirty from being in the suitcase.
I was surprised and said I only wash the clothes that have been worn.
So who is being unreasonable here?
To my mind, washing everything seems excessive or maybe I'm just a bit of a skank!

I usually aim to only wash the clothes that have actually been worn; I re-pack my luggage so that there’s some sort of “barrier” between the clean and dirty clothes.

Like others though, sometimes depending on the holiday I find there’s a smell to the clean clothes as well, in which case they get bunged in the washing machine.

you have a complete set of clothes you only wear on holiday?
Doesn’t everybody?
I’m intrigued by this too, never heard of such a thing!

I though the correct holiday packing/washing scenario was pack a multitude of emergency outfits, enough knickers to shit yourself five times a day, several woolly jumpers for 40C heat “just in case”, an expensive new silk beach kaftan thing even though you’ve never worn a beach cover-up before but the madness overtook you in Zara, and fancy sandals… then wear the same damp cossie, shorts, flip-flops and T-shirt every day for a fortnight, leaving everything else untouched in the case to go straight back in the wardrobe at home, slightly more wrinkly than when you set off.

Where do you all go to that your clothes smell 'odd'?

No wonder mumsnetters spend so much time doing laundry, I sometimes think it's a bit of a competition- who does the most loads of washing - I do as little as possible, and I take very little - for a lazy beach holiday I just wear swim suits all day, take a couple of dresses, couple of pairs of shorts and a couple of T shirts. Although I go with a friend who takes a different dress for every night of the holiday (and we are only going out for a meal and back in our room with a book by 10pm - not as if we are clubbing or anything) .

Most of them yes, I don’t tend to wear shorts/shorter dresses in the UK unless it’s very warm and so I’ll pull them out of the suitcase if needed but generally they stay in there alongside the bikinis and cover ups until next years sunny break. I don’t have room to store them in my wardrobe so the suitcase is a win win option

[quote ineedaholidaynow]@Ivy48 you have a complete set of clothes you only wear on holiday?[/quote]
Well I do now because none of my annual leave has been warm or dry enough to wear any of my hot weather clothes [bitter face].

@ineedaholidaynow @BeenAsFarAsMercyAndGrand
Most of them yes, I don’t tend to wear shorts/shorter dresses in the UK unless it’s very warm and so I’ll pull them out of the suitcase if needed but generally they stay in there alongside the bikinis and cover ups until next years sunny break. I don’t have room to store them in my wardrobe so the suitcase is a win win option

Depends on where I go. Last year we had a Summer trip in Scotland but thanks to the weather no shorts and hardly any T-shirts were worn. With just one week away no need to wash.

2 weeks beach/hot holiday? All clothes are worn and while there may be some clean underwear I find that even with careful packing and keeping clean clothes away from dirty one they do smell a bit funny. So they end up in a wash but it hardly makes a difference, there is lots of washing anyway, 3 pair of knickers is not causing a difference.

Also I’m in Wales so holiday clothes aren’t needed very often

I separate dirty laundry on holiday- and put in a separate bag but i wouldnt wash stuff that hasnt been worn.

enough knickers to shit yourself five times a day,

I don't wash clean stuff again unless it's bikinis, beach wear I might not use for another 12 months then I will wash it before packing it away in vac pac bags.

For laundry while on hols I've an excellent pop up basket from Tiger. So we drop bits in as we wear them as if we were at home then it fits straight into the car boot then I just take it to the bathroom with the regular laundry baskets.

@SquirryTheSquirrel that's what I do too! Dirty washing is kept separate to unworn items. Sometimes I even have two dirty washing bags, one for darks and one for lights!
Nothing is creased so no additional ironing required as I fold using the Marie Kondo method and upon arrival on holiday everything is hung up / unpacked and put away neatly.

I have precisely no clothes that I only wear on holiday.

Sometimes I do. If I've been abroad and got smelly beach towels in ere then everything has to get washed but I'll usually do the sniff test. I did have some stuff new with tags recently so wasn't washing them but aired them outside for a wee while.

@Ragwort

Where do you all go to that your clothes smell 'odd'?

No wonder mumsnetters spend so much time doing laundry, I sometimes think it's a bit of a competition- who does the most loads of washing - I do as little as possible, and I take very little - for a lazy beach holiday I just wear swim suits all day, take a couple of dresses, couple of pairs of shorts and a couple of T shirts. Although I go with a friend who takes a different dress for every night of the holiday (and we are only going out for a meal and back in our room with a book by 10pm - not as if we are clubbing or anything) .

For me it depends on the type of holiday. We don’t really do “relaxing” holidays so often it’ll be sweaty/muddy hiking gear or similar, sometimes my “quarantine” methods work, sometimes things end up a bit whiffy likewise once neoprene is added to the equation all bets are off as that lends a lovely pong no matter how well you think you’ve rinsed it!

I wash everything and steam clean the case too, incase of bedbugs.

@ZenNudist

I mainly do my washing on holiday and try to bring back largely clean! I also pack in packing cubes.

I wash as I go along on holiday too.

I always take minimal clothes on holiday (yes honestly I AM human) so everything has been worn and has probably been to the laundrette in the holiday location once too. The most I'd have unworn would be a couple of pairs of knicks, and I'd just wash them along with the rest.

I definitely wash everything whether I’ve worn it or not. If it’s been in your suitcase for a week or two it needs freshening!

I only wash what we have worn. It’s all unpacked when we are there (so not sat in a suitcase for two weeks).

On the way home, we have some cases for dirty clothes and one for clean. If I need to mix for space, the dirty gets separated by a non bag / carry bag.

I also have some clothes only worn on holiday that go in the case for storage until next year. Things like bikini’s, beach dresses, shorts etc. Things I’d never were in the UK.

If it’s been in your suitcase for a week or two it needs freshening!

Why would it have been in your suitcase for the entire holiday? Don't you unpack?

I brought home what would have been an entire extra load of clean clothing. My suitcases have a cover that splits them in half so the clean stuff was zipped away separate. Even so there were 5 loads of laundry to do - anything to reduce that is great! Especially as the weather was too shit to dry it outside.

I give em a sniff

Sometimes unworn ones still smell clean
Sometimes unworn ones have been next to dirty or damp things or smell plasticky like my bag or tent

We only wash what was worn. We pack all the clean clothes in one bag to come home and use the other bags to sort dirty washing. So clean and dirty clothes are never together.

For me it depends a bit. I always take some extra emergency clothes, so there should always be some unworn clothes.

A short weekend or a couple of nights away, then I don’t wash the emergency clothes. Although I would wash all emergency underwear/socks that was taken. If it’s two weeks abroad, then I find that the clean clothes have a ‘holiday’ smell (suntan lotion, bug spray, after sun, chlorine, sweat, hotel) that has been picked up from the dirty clothes so they will all get washed.

I generally put the whole lot into the laundry basket. I agree with previous posters about them often having a smell that is 'wrong'. I'm pretty sure that it's me and not the locations that I travel to, I just notice smells a lot. Even when I send my quilts out to be quilted I have to air them when they come back as they have been handled by someone else. I even notice when my DH has driven my car that it smells of him. I use unscented laundry sheets and no fabric conditioner. To me my clothes don't smell of anything, but they probably do it's just that it's familiar to me so I don't notice it.