Live data from Hacker News

Why some clothes shrink in the wash and how to unshrink them

swinburne.edu.au

131–140 of 287 posts

Re: Why some clothes shrink in the wash and how to unshrink them

#131

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 mat…

I'm with you 100% -- shrinking tees and shrinking sleeves were the bane of my existence, I'd buy my proper size but they would only be wearable like 5 times until they got too short. But if I bought a size up, I'd be swimming in them horizontally even after they shrank. (The people here saying that shrinkage isn't a problem anymore, I have no idea what they're talking about. Maybe they wear a baggy/long style of clothing so it doesn't matter? And I don't care how supposedly "preshrunk" cotton is, it's not preshrunk enough.)

Now I just wash on cold and hang dry all my cotton shirts, tees and button-ups. Just use a folding drying rack as simple as this:

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/mulig-drying-rack-indoor-outdoo...

It's a little annoying to have to leave the rack out in the middle of some room to dry overnight, but zero shrinkage ever. The way it fit in the store is the way it still fits three years later.

And no, stretching with conditioner/shampoo doesn't work, because there's no easy way to stretch it the "right" way -- as you tug on spots at the neck and the waist to pull them apart, they stretch but in weird, inconsistent, lumpy ways. The final result just looks like you've had small kids trying to hang from different spots on your shirt and it's all out of shape. Maybe in theory if you had some kind of stretching system with long clamps or something it could work, but who has that? Doing it by hand, it's definitely not a solution.

Re: Why some clothes shrink in the wash and how to unshrink them

#132
post #61

Day 39585 of HN not knowing anything about selvedge denim, or other nice quality men’s fashion…

I hardly have anything that I'd trust to a mechanical washer or dryer, these days. The things I do (mostly underwear and socks) still need cold-wash and extra-low-heat dry.

The default for all people should to cold wash and hang dry what they care about taking care of, and to use extra-low-heat on what they don't care about.

Indoor hang drying is easy. Get a box fan, and a de-humidifier. Both are about 20$ USD. Now you don't even need to open the windows or worry about what's going on outside.

I went from zero to hero with clothes when I realized I should care about them, and seeing the night and day difference in how long my clothes last has been jarring. Shrinkage is a thing of the past.

Re: Why some clothes shrink in the wash and how to unshrink them

#133
post #51

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…

I have recently started refusing to buy all of this plastic filled clothes. If I see any % of it I don't buy it. Period. I spend much more upfront for clothes, but I gain a lot long term. Clothes don't look terrible after few washings and they tend to last forever.

I tried that but quickly found out that a bit of polyester makes clothes MUCH more durable. It doesn't matter for bath robes, but underwear or socks with just 5% of polyester last almost 10x longer.

Re: Why some clothes shrink in the wash and how to unshrink them

#134
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Polyester (as one plastic based fiber) gets a lot of flack because low quality clothes tend to use it, but polyester can be a fantastic fabric if done right. Durable, fast drying, and can be completely recycled. For example, Patagonia tends to have high quality polyesters and has since the 70s. My experience with their fleece is that I can abuse it and it'll come out unaffected on the other end. Pilling now and…

One problem with polyester is the amount of microplastics which enter the water supply when washing them. It's an unacceptable amount.

Polyester is biodegradable, albeit slowly.

Re: Why some clothes shrink in the wash and how to unshrink them

#135
post #53
post #45

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.

A "parenthetical dash" (the semantic meaning) can be typeset either as an em dash (a typographic meaning) without spaces, or as an en dash (a typographic meaning) surrounded by spaces. And the latter is often referred to as an em dash (as a semantic meaning), since basically everyone uses that to mean "parenthetical dash" which is the correct term but a term that virtually nobody uses.

Re: Why some clothes shrink in the wash and how to unshrink them

#137

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?

All jeans relax by about 1" in the waist after a few wears, because you're literally just mechanically stretching them every time you sit down.

Cotton tees would stretch like that too if you wore them as tight as jeans are worn around the waist. But we don't wear them that way.

Re: Why some clothes shrink in the wash and how to unshrink them

#138
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not buying fast fashion helps with the color fastness. There was the article sometime back about one of the popular depeche mode sites with "swimming attire" vs swimsuits as they were not meant to get wet and the colors would run down your skin if you got them wet.

That's a weird topic for an 80s band fan site, but ok.

did you ever ask yourself what the name of the band meant?

Re: Why some clothes shrink in the wash and how to unshrink them

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably not the washes but due to wear.

If somebody wants to wear tight jeans, how can they do that, if the jeans that were tight in store expand afterwards? Surely you can't buy a size smaller because then you can't wear them to break them.

> how can they do that

The answer is literally, with great difficulty. Anything tight that needs to be broken in is reaaally tight at first. But when there's a will, there's a way.

Re: Why some clothes shrink in the wash and how to unshrink them

#140
post #51

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…

> Is anyone else freaked out about cleaning their dryer's lint filter given all the new fabric materials?

I used to be. So I spent quite a lot of time researching the issue. Not just google searches, but actually speaking with biologists.

I think that the current microplastic scare is overblown. The "credit card worth of plastic in brain" articles are just ridiculous. Biologically, the body has defenses against microscopic contaminants in blood. There are special immune cells that "eat" insoluble particles and then get excreted (typically in bile).

It looks like I'm not alone in my bafflement: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/01/scary-research-... or https://www.vox.com/climate/475004/microplastics-research-fa...

Post reply on HN