Clothing Company Claims Its Items Don't Need to Be Washed for Weeks on End

A startup called Unbound Merino wants you to wear the same shirt for days on end all through the summer without washing it. Company during this period not guaranteed.

The tees run $65 a pop and are made of wool that can, allegedly, “go weeks without being washed,” according to Fast Company. Less washing means less water is used and wasted on doing laundry, which helps the planet and your utility bills. Washing machines account for 17 percent of our home water usage, according to the magazine, and about 25 percent of any given article of clothing’s carbon footprint over the course of its lifetime is attributed to washing it.

This is all despite the fact that washing machine company AEG estimates that 90 percent of clothes that we toss into the machine aren’t actually dirty enough to wash in the first place. But decades of marketing by detergent companies aimed at getting consumers to believe they had to wash their clothes after just one wear in order to be hygienic has, seemingly, worked, creating a challenge for companies like Unbound Merino that want to change this mindset.

To do that, the startup is relying heavily on wool for its “naturally breathable and moisture-wicking” properties, which makes your sweat evaporate into the air and not sink into your clothes.

“Not all wool is created equal,” said Dima Zelikman, Unbound Merino’s cofounder. “Different sheep produce different kinds of wool. Our goal was to create a fabric that was extremely soft and thin, but that still had all the benefits of wool.”

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