The environmentally conscious no-wash movement just received an august endorsement – but the upshot is nose pegs at 20 paces. France’s Ecological Transition Agency’s new official guidelines on how often clothes should be laundered has caused much ribald comment – not least across the Channel in Britain.
In the long cultural rivalry about which nation is the most soap-dodging, the French now have a new edge, since the heroic instruction that T-shirts can be worn for five days in a row and jeans for up to a month. Workout clothes need washing only after three wears.
Pausing only to exclaim at the agency’s leniency on underpants – wash each wear – Brexiteers are thrilled at what they see as another example of European Union countries’ enthusiasm for high-handed prescriptions.
Some French politicians have demanded the agency’s abolition, calling its advice ridiculous.
It was at least a respite from regular embarrassing UK marketing surveys, including one finding a fifth of British men wash or change their underdungers only once a week. Conversely, other research has found Britons use more laundry detergent than citizens of most European countries.
Still, this endlessly touchy battleground of virtue is getting grubbier. UK appliance-maker Electrolux last year recommended wearing clothes more times between washes, shorter washing cycles and lower temperatures to reduce waste in electricity and prematurely worn-out fabrics.
When even a washing machine company says we’re overdoing it, is even the daily knicker-change safe? Studies suggest about 70% of a T-shirt’s carbon footprint comes from washing and drying – considerably more than the emissions created in its manufacture. Cutting the wash extends the wear and cuts the emissions.
We’d be quids in if we handwashed our smalls and spot-cleaned and steamed bigger garments more often. But it’s a hard sell after decades of clean-shaming advertising. Frankly, the modern nostril will never agree with science about this stuff. The trend for seldom laundering and never shampooing remains a minority preoccupation. To today’s sensibility, not even the most industrial-strength deodorant could militate against pongy fifth-day T-shirt underarms.
For perspective, regular washing, like women’s equality, is a miniscule blip in the sweep of history. Most of humanity has been quite accustomed to the smell of seldom-washed clothes and bodies. For cases of severe whiffiness, there were herbs and pomanders. Even when medical science began to establish the health benefits of good hygiene, laundry and bathing were major physical and logistical undertakings to be carefully rationed.
We wince at forebears’ daily flannel washes and mere weekly baths – “whether we needed it or not!” – cherishing electric washers and dryers as being among modern humanity’s most liberating benisons. If anything, consumer enthusiasm for deep-cleaning antibacterial habits has grown keener. Younger generations’ hygiene “hacks” are the subject of myriad TikTok videos.
However, the science and practicalities behind low-wash are compelling. Some natural fibres, notably wool, have antimicrobial properties and tend not to retain odours. Washing woollens risks shrinking, matting and pilling and wears them out faster. Washing some synthetics pollutes the environment with microparticles.
Not all garments are worn against the skin or prone to harbouring shed skin, bacteria, sweat, and the like. To the extent they do, a clothesline airing may be enough.
Manufacturers’ cleaning instructions can be patently self-serving, such as the common injunction to wash bras daily to “restore their shape”, when this just degrades them faster.
Laundry etiquette is already sufficiently fraught – some housing developments ban visible clothes lines for aesthetic reasons. Some householders genuinely regard hanging out washing in public as a shameful faux pas, never mind the thought that officious neighbours might now be counting their trips to the Hills Hoist.
