Tips for keeping clothes looking like new?

[versatastic]

How often do you wash your clothes? If you don't sweat much, can you get away with wearing them more than once before washing? A bottle of Febreeze will keep clothes smelling fresh for a few cycles of wearing them before you have to wash them because they start to feel weird or get all stretched out.

But like others have said, use cool or cold water for colors, and separate them from the whites.

You might want to separate darks colors from bright colors too.

Also, you don't really need as much detergent as is recommended on the box/jug. Half or two-thirds is good. Even with Tide, there's some residue left over after the wash, which depends more on the quality of water and the machine than the detergent itself. You don't want to have to rinse twice. The g-force from the spinning leaches out a little bit of the dye/pigment along with the water/detergent.

The "light" cycle (~6minutes of aggitation as opposed to the "normal" 10-12 minutes) is fine if you don't have anything more than sweat/BO on your clothes.

It's better to do a "medium" load than a "large" load.


I haven't had any Old Navy clothes in years, but when I did they did not last very long. Maybe buy better quality clothes when they're on sale. Macy's basically has a perpetual sale going on every single day.

 

[justsimon]

Wear lighter colors.

I wash everything on cold and dry on low.

 

[orryyon]

Don't buy cheap clothes and read the care labels. I'm not saying your clothes are cheap, but buy good quality not nessicarily designer labels (although they tend to last longer). Separate whites from the colors using cold water and/or find a reasonably priced dry cleaner. Also detergent matters as well , woolite works wonders for delicates or a color safe bleach. Otherwise you will continue to waste money replacing items that don't seem to last , when you could have cared for them better.