We all want to be clean and presentable, and sometimes that means we overwash some of our clothes, including our bras. Many women wear an everyday bra only once before throwing it in the laundry pile. Washing a bra after every wear significantly decreases the bra’s useful life.
Ways Laundering Hurts Your Bras
Laundering is harsh on clothes, particularly more delicate pieces like bras. The washing can often involve hot water, which is particularly detrimental to the elastics in bras. So is the heat from hot dryer cycles. Heat generally causes the elastics to break down faster, reducing the overall support your bra provides.
Bleach and other harsh chemicals often used to launder undergarments can hurt your bras because these cleaning materials can structurally weaken the elastics and fibers of the fabrics and cause them to break down faster.
How Often to Launder Your Bra
Instead of laundering your bra after a single wear, consider wearing your bra 2-3 times before washing it to extend its life. Give your bra a day or two to rest between wears – this helps the elastics recover and last longer.
Wearing more in between washing also reduces the exposure to the harsher elements, heat, and chemicals of more frequent laundering. Check out our mention in Real Simple for more reasons why laundering your bra less frequently is better.
Tips for Laundering Your Bra
When it comes time to launder your bras, use cold water and a gentle wash cycle, dry on low temperatures whenever possible, avoid bleach and harsh chemicals, and use a laundry bag to keep your intimates looking great for longer. If you’re able, handwashing and air drying are even better, but if that’s too hard to achieve, don’t sweat it. Remember that washing your bras less often and getting more use in between wears is a great way to get the most out of your bra - which seems like a pretty easy solution to us.
