Washing fleece, knits and cheap cotton so they survive a year

The fabrics in this catalog are cotton blends, polyester fleece and acrylic knit. None of them are delicate in the way silk is delicate. They fail in specific, predictable ways: fleece goes flat, knits pill, cotton necklines go soft and wavy. Each failure has one main cause and heat is behind most of them.

Fleece lined sweatpants

The lining is brushed polyester. Those raised fibres are what hold warm air, and they are the first thing a hot dryer flattens. Once the pile is matted the pants stop being warm and start being heavy.

• Wash cold, inside out, on a normal cycle. Cold water is enough for polyester.
• Skip fabric softener. It coats the fibres and kills loft faster than heat does.
• Tumble on low or hang them. If you use a dryer, take them out slightly damp.
• Wash with other soft things. A zip or a jean rivet abrades fleece on contact.

Done that way, a twenty five dollar pair keeps its inside soft for two winters. Done in a hot machine with softener, the loft is gone by spring.

Chunky knits and sweaters

Acrylic blend knits pill where fabric rubs fabric: under the arms, along the sides where a bag strap sits, across the back of a car seat. Pilling is not a sign of a defect. It is loose fibre migrating, and every knit at this price does it.

Reducing it

Turn the sweater inside out before washing, use a gentle cycle, and wash it with other knits rather than with towels. Towels shed and knits catch what they shed.

Fixing it

A battery fabric shaver costs about ten dollars and takes ten minutes over a whole sweater. Lay the garment flat, hold the fabric taut with one hand, move the shaver in short passes. A knit shaved once a season looks new for two winters. A knit never shaved looks tired by February.

Drying

Flat, always. A wet knit hung on a hanger stretches at the shoulders under its own weight and there is no way back from that.

Cotton blend tees and tanks

These are the cheapest things here and the ones people ruin fastest. Two failures dominate.

1. The neckline goes wavy. Caused by pulling the shirt off by the collar and by hanging it wet. Fold jersey instead of hanging it.
2. It shrinks in the body and stays wide at the shoulders. Caused by hot washes. Cold water and low heat keep the proportion.

Double lined tanks need one extra thought. Two layers hold water, so they take longer to dry and will feel damp at the seams when the rest of the load is done. Give them an extra hour on a rail rather than another dryer cycle.

Colour

Wash new dark pieces separately the first two times. The deep colours in this range are dyed to a price and the first wash carries loose dye. After that they settle and stop bleeding.

White double lined tanks stay white longer if they never meet fabric softener, which yellows over time. Oxygen bleach once every few months does more than chlorine ever will, and it will not eat the elastane.

Water shoes

Rinse in fresh water the same day, every day. Salt and chlorine both attack the elastic in the upper. Dry them out of direct sun with the opening facing down, and never put them in a machine: the glued sole and the fabric part company under agitation.

The short version

Cold water, low heat, no softener, fold rather than hang, and buy a fabric shaver. That is most of it. The clothes in this catalog are not built to last a decade and no amount of care changes that, but the gap between one season and three is mostly down to the dryer setting.