> Another thing Im doing is switching to 100% cotton (or just no plastic fibers). I love the breathability and light feel of cotton shirts.

I've been wanting to do the same; it's kind of amazing how at some point everything started to be made with plastics, even jeans.

If I had the time, space, and equipment, I'd make my own clothes from patterns. Because I have none, I guess I'll be carefully inspecting tags while shopping (and I'm prepared for a lot of frustration). Wish there was more of a cottage industry around homemade clothing!

Ive honestly considered the same thing. Wouldnt it be nice to make a few tailored "masters" and then just make your own shirts off those. Perfect fit everytime time.

It's just the senseless waste of the modern world. Like dry laundry soap, why cant i just bring my glass jar to the grocery store, tar it, refill from a bulk bin. Why do we have to make millions of plastic containers, so pointless. Ive only been to one grocery store in my life where this was possible.

Im sick of senseless plastic everywhere. My personal theory is our biggest sources of plastic ingestion is: clothing made of plastic slowly wearing away and inhaling treadwear from car tires on the road.

> Ive honestly considered the same thing. Wouldnt it be nice to make a few tailored "masters" and then just make your own shirts off those. Perfect fit everytime time.

That’s just called going to a tailor.

But honestly, if you just want coton clothes, that’s not hard to find. It’s just more expensive.

100% agreed, and I've had the exact thought about soap (shampoo, in my case)! I love stores with 'bulk' sections, but they're usually just a small selection of dry cereals, beans, and nuts. Now, to work properly with your own jars, I think you'd want a shopkeeper doing the filling, so he could check the tare. A return to the general store of old, to some extent.

It's been on my to-do list the past few months to find a bulk shampoo, body wash vendor of some kind. I got a body wash that has a bottle design that is just perfect for my shower. I want to get 2 more for shampoo and then just refill them endlessly with the bulk product.

So far in my cursory searches I have found nothing , but I'd like to think eventually I'll find some chemicals company that makes the raw products for the value brands and buy from them.

Shampoo is harder, but making your own soap is easy and satisfying and it works better than store-bought.

I'd think that most ingested plastic comes from food packaging.

> why cant i just bring my glass jar to the grocery store, tar it, refill from a bulk bin

Bulk Barn in Canada is exactly this, and you can get all your spices and grains from there.

I've only been to bulk barn on very rare occasions for certain candies that are hard to find elsewhere, but as far as I'm aware they only do food stuffs right? I don't think they sell detergents or cleaning materials? They're also more expensive that regular right? Hmm I suppose I'd be willing to pay for that tho.

As far as I can tell, the plastics generally aren't even better at being clothes. They just cost less than cotton, which is why they generally blend cotton and polyester to create something that feels good enough while reducing the expensive cotton usage.

Synthetics often dry much faster than cotton and are more useable when wet.

Seconding this. In the realm of winter clothing, wool is king, but real wool is pricey and the next best thing is probably polyester bc wet cotton is horrific.

Some of the properties of synthetics are great, yeah, and I don't know to what extent I'll ever be able to get away from them for underwear and exercise gear, for those specific reasons.

> Because I have none, I guess I'll be carefully inspecting tags while shopping (and I'm prepared for a lot of frustration)

I've been doing it for years and yes there is a lot of frustration, but I do think after some time you gain the ability to just touch a product and get it's likely not made of 100% cotton (or linen or wool or whatever else) just by touch and in some cases the style of clothes. There are certain shapes that I can't quite describe, but seem to be impossible or at least not desirable in the 100% cotton realm of clothing.

Cotton is generally far worse for the environment than other natural fibers like linen and wool, as well as most synthetic fibers.

I grew up being taught that cotton was best and for decades wore it almost exclusively. But something I have realized over the years is that it is also much, much heavier than polyester or nylon blends, especially when it's wet.

If your shirt can't dry overnight then you're forced to buy more shirts just to handle the washing/drying overlap, which is wasteful. Not to mention only owning cotton makes doing anything outside in the rain require more calculus around how many days you will need to dry the clothes that got wet, so now you need to own overlap clothes for still-wearably-clean clothes too. Even worse, if you're in a cold environment then you likely can't keep wearing your wet clothes as they dry, because wet cotton loses insulation, making you feel much colder, so there's more incentive to change even before the end of the day.

Wool is a better option than cotton if you want "natural" fiber that is still wearable when wet, but that comes with the moral guilt and ecological impact of animal husbandry, so I'm not sure if it's better or worse than plastic, which at least is only made from animals and plants that died millions of years ago.

Personally I have chosen to keep cotton for underwear and tank tops for comfort, and also because I anyway own 7 of those so there is enough overlap for them to dry over the weekend when they get wet and I'm in a cold and/or humid climate. But for pants and shorts where I only own two of each (and only bring one of each when traveling) then polyester/nylon that can dry overnight in most any climate is more practical. Socks and long sleeves I've decided to go with wool despite the animal cruelty because it's the most practical. I only need a couple pairs of socks and a single long sleeve to get by in a warmer climate, and I have a polyester coat for colder climates.

It still feels a bit high impact, but as you say, most stuff lasts many years so I don't feel too bad about it when I see people buying more stuff than I have in my entire wardrobe on a single casual shopping trip.

It's not wasteful to buy more shirts because they will then last longer overall - you're unlikely to make a few shirts last an entire lifetime unless you want to end up with repair patches everywhere. Only if you change body shape significantly or style significantly will they get wasted. I have dress shirts that are ten years old.

Linen and wool are fibers I havent really tried and I plan to very soon. A couple other comments mentioning cotton does not dry fast for hang drying well some new washers have really impressive spin cycles. The clothes come out way more dry than the washer I have now, which is actually older than me LOL. Anything more than 50% polyester and I dont like the lack of breathability feeling that I get. Especially at night in an all foam mattress.

I think maybe my ideal home laundry room would have a little dehumidifier connected to a floor drain with plenty of racks and hangers. Room temp drying but the dehumidifier speed up the process significantly.

What brand are the jeans? When I think about my shirts, socks, and underwear, all of it lasts 4-6 years.. though my socks are 6 years old and I see no sign of needing to replace them any time soon.

However, I have a stack of jeans that all start coming apart in the same spot. I've started looking into how to mend jeans, as I'm sick of this being an issue. They are the most expensive thing I'm wearing (other than shoes) and seem to be the least durable. Though I do wear them 7x more often than the other articles, so I guess I should take that into account.

If that same spot is the crotch, they may just be too tight for you or hanging too low. But if it's because of poor construction, getting over the hump of a higher initial price and buying well made jeans like Iron Heart would save you money overall.

It is in the crotch area. Maybe they are hanging too low, but I’m not too interested in going with tighter jeans.

I'm saying you should go for looser jeans

Levi's and lacoste. My only wear in the back cuff. Ive started to be a little more conscious indoors and put some flip flops to stop the wear there. No other wear spots for me.

Consider 100% linen or a blend as well for hot summer days. I have a few short-sleeve linen shirts which are great for days over 28°C. Linen has a coarser weave than cotton, and breathes even better. It can handle sweat better too (dries faster when wearing).

I don't have a dryer, so all my clothes are hung to dry. Jeans tend to go in the seat first. I think I average eight years or so, wearing jeans most of the year.

Definitely going to be trying those soon. Running a dehumidifier in the same room where you dry your clothes speed it up.

If you're ever wet (from rain or sweat), "cotton is rotten."

Try wool. Overwhelmingly more comfortable.

People who pay up for a nice pair of selvedge jeans, such as the Levi's reproductions of early-mid 1900s denim, tend to wear the same pair every day, wear them into the shower if they're too dirty, and keep wearing them as they dry. That way, the fit conforms to your body over time, and the fabric develops a patina and becomes more comfortable with time. Modern mass-produced denim does not have this property. I own a drier that I don't use, and I am consistently amazed at how few people make the connection that the stuff in their lint trap at the end of the cycle is their clothes.

I’m switching over to merino wool whenever it goes on sale. Socks first and it’s been a huge change in quality for me. My feet are much happier.