I recently bought some new shorts, via the Web, that were too big. After searching for a solution to this and find a lot of conjecture and guesswork, I decided to just try the average presented solution and see what works.
Photographs in the relevant Flickr set.
Hypothesis
The claim is that washing cotton in hot water then drying in a hot dryer will cause it to shrink.
Materials
New, unwashed shorts made of cotton twill; a tape measure; a laundry machine; a dryer; laundry detergent.
Setup
The shorts before washing measured as follows:
- waist
- 15 1/4 inches
- leg opening, right
- 11 1/2 inches
- leg opening, left
- 11 1/2 inches
- height, down the right
- 23 inches
- height, down the left
- 23 1/8 inches
Procedure
Set the washing machine to regular heavy, hot wash; add laundry detergent and just the shorts. Let it do its thing.
As soon as it finishes move the shorts, alone, to the dryer. Set the dryer to regular heavy high, very dry. Let it do its thing; when it finishes the shorts will not be totally dry (something about needing to be dried with other clothing for it to work), so run it again. I couldn’t figure out my dryer so it only ran half as long the second time; I ran it a third half-time to finish it off.
Results
After drying the measurements are as follows:
- waist
- 15 1/2 inches
- leg opening, right
- 12 inches
- leg opening, left
- 11 6/8 inches
- height, down the right
- 22 5/8 inches
- height, down the left
- 23 inches
Analysis and Conclusion
If anything, they stretched. This could be misreadings on my part, or it could be the case that cotton twill will stretch in the wash.
We can plainly see that they did not shrink by any noticeable amount. In conclusion, I don’t know how to shrink clothing in the wash.
