So, how gross is it to wear the same jeans day in and day out, without washing them for almost a year? It’s actually not that bad says Rachel McQueen, Assistant Professor of Textile Science at the University of Alberta in Canada. She turned her curiosity into an experiment, assisted by student Josh Le, who volunteered to wear the same pair of jeans for 330 days straight without tossing them into a washing machine. After 47 weeks of wearing the jeans, Josh handed them over to McQueen, who ran them through a washing machine and then tested them for bacteria. Then Josh wore the jeans again without washing them for two weeks. The jeans were then tested a second time. Aside from the psychological yuck factor, the bacteria load on the jeans was surprisingly harmless. Though the bacterial count was high, the strains found were not a threat to human health. McQueen also found that bacteria growth was virtually the same from the jeans after 15 months with no washing, compared to two weeks after being washed. Though McQueen doesn't recommend waiting a year or more to launder garments, the trial findings indicate that going longer between washings doesn't appear to pose a risk in the general population.
