This is why you need to wash your new clothes before you wear them
Wash your stuff. (Picture: Getty)
You know the drill. You casually stroll into Topshop. You fall in love with a fancy jacket/jumper/trousers. You take said item home and proceed to wear it EVERY DAMN DAY until you get bored of it.
This is personal style. This is why we have no money.

But this process has a major thing missing: washing your new piece of clothing before you wear it for the first time

Seems like overkill, right? It’s new, so it must be clean. Why would you risk shrinkage just to wash something that seems perfectly fine to begin with?

This is why you need to wash your new clothes before you wear them
(Picture: Getty)
Well, it turns out that taking clothes straight from your shopping bag and placing them on your body can have a nasty impact on your health. So we really should be washing every single thing before we even think about wearing it.

Clothing manufacturing expert Lana Hogue explained to Elle.com that there are two main reasons we all need to be washing our clothes before we wear them.

Firstly, there’s likely of a whole load of germs sitting on your new purchase, thanks to the trying-on process it’s probably been through multiple times while in the shop.

But more importantly, says Lana, almost every single piece of clothing has been covered with chemicals that could cause serious side effects when they come in contact with the skin.

‘You should absolutely wash clothes before you wear them,’ says Lana. ‘Especially anything that is right next to the skin or that you will sweat on.

‘Most of the chemicals used in dyeing fabric and putting finishes on yarns that allow them to be processed through spinning equipment are known irritants.’

This is why you need to wash your new clothes before you wear them
(Picture: Getty)
These irritants can lead to nasty issues like dermatitis, an itchy red rash that can appear wherever the irritant touches the skin.

Lana explains that these chemicals have to be used throughout the manufacturing process. Yarns are sprayed with ant-mildew concoctions, then glossed with chemicals that help them to slide through weaving machines.
And to make dyes stick to any type of fabric, the textiles have to be treated with even more chemicals.
Formaldehyde reisn and azo-aniline dyes are also commonly used throughout the manufacturing process.

This is why you need to wash your new clothes before you wear them
(Picture: Getty)
Don’t feel safe if you’re buying a fancy all cotton shirt, either. Lana says that ‘even natural fibres require caustic chemicals’.
Yeah, we’re feeling a little freaked out right now.

The easy solution: wash your damn clothes before you wear them. All of them. Do it now.