Washing new clothes

No I don’t, I buy and wear

No not as a rule but if something had that strange new smell then yes I would.

I know folks who do this, its to do with the smell from the new item, they cant stand it. Mind you if all items have a chemical finish, maybe we should all be doing it.

If something looks like it needs an iron before I'd wear it, then it will be washed. I hate ironing things that haven't been washed. When my children were at home then I washed all of their new things before they wore them. In fact my daughter would always ask me to put "the smell of our house on them"

I don’t wash my clothes before wearing but towels & bed linen yes.
My DH likes his shirts washed before wearing.
I can remember washing baby clothes too.

My daughter does. She didn’t get it from me!

tamayra I don’t believe body lice can live more than 24 hours on a non body object so not sure how yours managed to travel from India to infect you

Yes always wash them
I once caught body lice from an unwashed made in India dress
Never again !

I used to wash somethings but not nowadays. Just thinking woukd my daughter have washed her wedding dress, would I have washed my wedding outfit for daughter's and sons' weddings. Definitely no.

Yes - always do a quick wash with tea-towels, towels, sheets, pillowcases and anything from charity shop. Just to get rid of smell and finish. Not usually new clothes, although they never really feel as if their 'mine' until they've had their first wash!

I wash all new clothes etc., ever since I saw an episode of House where one man was desperately ill, and it turned out to be the finish on the new clothes hevwas wearing.

Certainly some things.
I do recall being totally horrified seeing new mothers putting babies in clothing out of wrapping papers when they’d been brought in to the hospital new from the shops.

No, never!

No I don’t. Also I think clothes lose a certain ‘something’ once they have been washed. I had a neighbour who used to hang anything new - clothes, bed linen, towels - on the washing line, but they were never washed. She was just showing off that she had been buying!

I always wash new clothes before I wear them as you never know who tried them on before/ wore them and returned them with labels intact and whether the manufacturer put some sort of finish on the fabric. I also wash new towels and bed linen before using.

I wash all new clothes to get the stiffening out, plus the smell of whatever perfume the shop has used.

I was told as a child that clothes wore better if you washed them before use.

My grandmother said that you could never know whether the seamstress making them or the man packing them had picked their nose!

That horrible picture has stayed with me.

I find charity shop clothes stink of cheap washing-powder and need to be washed at least three times before I can wear them.

You can't dry anything with a tea-towel that has never been washed, or wash a floor well with a new, unwashed floor-cloth, either.

I had to for my husband because he suffered from eczema and psoriasis and the finish on new clothes exacerbated the conditions. He used a new M&S vest before I had washed it and came out in a dreadful rash.

I don't wash new clothes but always wash towels and bed linen as sometimes they have a plastic like smell. I always thought clothes had some sort of finishing process after they'd been made. Maybe that doesn't happen now with Primark and similar shops due to keeping costs down.

No of course not, they re new why would you
I do know some people do It’s waste of time water and effort in my opinion
Oh dear if some people are so worried their new clothes might have been handled by ‘dirty hands’ for goodness sake never sleep in a B & B or hotel, never eat out in a restaurant or cafe, never use a public toilet and for goodness sake never ever touch a handrail
I m amazed my children and myself are still alive as I didn’t wash their clothes nappies vests or anything until they were dirty
No wonder there are so many allergies around today

I never have even thought of washing new items, though do wash those I buy in charity shops, but will have a think now.

I do - some clothing has a strange 'finish'. I did hear an assistant in a clothes shop say that some very grubby people had been in and tried on various outfits - that got me thinking so now I do use the 'quickwash for anything I buy.

Both hubby and son expect me to do this! Cant't see point myself. I usually just pretend I've washed 'em and maybe give them a little iron so it looks like I have done it!!

X-posting Happiyogi

I admit I don't do it (except for underwear) - but my daughter who works in the fashion industry always washes the garments that are washable. She says if you have seen the way they are handled, treated and the conditions they are stored in you wouldn't want to wear without washing. She never washed things before wearing until she started taking "manufacturing" trips as part of her job.

As others have said, the starches and fabric finishers are chemical based and can easily cause rashes.... though, as others have pointed out, not psoriasis - which is an auto-immune disease.

When I was a student, I got my first pair of jeans (this was in the dark ages of the early 60s) and went hiking in the rain. Never considered washing them. When I took them off, I discovered what 'indigo' meant. My legs looked ad if they'd been disastrously bruised.