ByKate Antoniades Hours Updated
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How to Make Your Clothing Last Longer

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woman pours capful of laundry detergent into top-loading washer; the laundry detergent cap is purple, there is a reddish bottle of detergent on the left, and some green plants on the right

Wondering how to make your clothes last longer? This can be great from a budgetary perspective as well as an environmental one — so here are some tips on caring for your clothes to help them last longer, including laundry tips to extend the life of your wardrobe!

How to Make Your Clothes Last Longer

1. Give your clothing a new life by upcycling things you no longer wear. Dye a dress, cut up an old shirt for rags (I've done this with old tees made from thicker 100% cotton), turn a too-small item into a tote bag, and so on. Check out YouTube, Pinterest, and Reddit for inspiration.

2. Learn to mend your clothing. Again, YouTube tutorials are great for this if you don't have someone to show you in person. While it may not fly in a lot of offices, visible mending is a fun technique — Better Homes & Gardens has tips, and r/visiblemending has 200,000+ members sharing ideas and advice.

3. Use care techniques that are gentler on your clothes. This Cosmo article lists 25 tips on doing just that, from treating stains ASAP, to washing jeans inside out, to steaming clothes rather than ironing. (Here are our tips for ironing less!)

4. Remove pilling from sweaters rather than ditching them. You don't always have to get rid of clothes that are pilling — use a battery-operated fabric shaver, or a reusable or disposable razor. (Need tips to prevent pilling in the first place? Good Housekeeping has them.)

{related: how often do you wash your workwear and other clothes?}

Make Laundry Day Greener

1. Wash clothes at home rather than taking them to the dry cleaner (even some “dry clean only” clothing!), and in cases when it's feasible and not, you know, gross, consider washing clothing less often in general. (Also a thing, apparently: “washless clothes.” Hmmm.)

(The last time we discussed dry cleaning at home, readers really liked these products:)

2. Don't overuse detergent. This Real Simple article tells you how to know whether you're using the correct amount.

3. Reduce microplastics released from your laundry by adding a washing machine filter or special laundry bags/balls. Wirecutter delved into this a couple of years ago, and the National Park Service has tips for reducing laundry microfiber shedding.

Readers, what are your favorite ways to make your clothing last longer? Do you regularly do any of the above?

11 Comments

  1. This is my superpower! I can make a t-shirt from Target last for a decade.

    My first rule is that I never wear clothing I want to preserve for activities that are dirty or sweaty (to the extent possible— I do live in the south). Also, if I’m wearing good clothes, I change immediately when I get home.

    Clothing that isn’t dirty gets hung up and aired out before being returned to the closet. I have pretty hooks on the wall for this task.

    I only do small loads of laundry. I was pj’s, socks, underwear, and workout clothes in hot water, and I dry them in the dryer. Everything else gets washed in cold water on the delicate cycle with only a small amount of eco friendly detergent and hung to dry.

    I also use hangers that don’t stretch the clothes out at the shoulders and fold anything that can’t be hung in a way that doesn’t do damage. I also generally don’t pull, stretch, snag, or fidget with my clothes while I’m wearing them.

  2. The big one I’m surprised isn’t here is either don’t put your clothing in the dryer or reduce the heat setting on your dryer and use it for less time. The dryer is hard on clothing and uses gas or electricity.

    1. Yeah, it’s listed in the Cosmo article linked in #3 but to me those are the biggies.

  3. A long time ago my dry cleaner told me that I clean my clothes too often. When the person that makes money from dry cleaning told me that I did it too much, I had to listen.
    Now I air my clothes out after wearing, steam instead of iron, dry clean sparingly, and my clothes last and look good forever. Also I have a big wardrobe and wear everything so nothing gets used too often.

  4. Two choices in the clothes you buy will help. I find that natural fabrics last longer, and that clothing that fits and isn’t too small also has a longer life. Also, the more a fabric is blended, the less well it holds up, even if much of the blend is a natural fabric. I’ve mostly stopped buying synthetic blend sweaters because I got so fed up watching them pill season after season.

    Agree that not putting clothes in the dryer extends their life, especially for clothes that have stretch and spandex!

  5. Dyeing clothing turns out to be pretty easy. I bought a really nice crocheted cardigan this spring, but when it arrived, the lavender color was much to bright and the buttons looked cheap. I bought new buttons — that was easy. I also ventured nervously into the project of dyeing the sweater — and it was super easy. To be conservative, I put a little less RIT dye than instructed (color gray) into hot water in a bucket and soaked the sweater. I liked how the gray toned down and deepened the color, but it wasn’t quite enough. I did another round and then it was perfect. It was very easy and not messy at all.

  6. The issue in my household is usually anti-perspirant/deodorant build up. Has anyone found a solution that genuinely works for this?

  7. I bought a spray bottle that lets out a super-fine mist. Misting my dry/wrinkled clothes and shaking them out and then hanging them up has been working really well for me without needing to deal with the steamer or iron. Won’t get clothes crisp, but plenty good enough for TShirts etc.

    Link to Follow.

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