HOw often should I wash my binder?

[Alex201]

Everytime I wear it?

[Morgan]

Once a week is good enough. Unless you sweat like nobody's business and then cannot stand the smell of your binder
I wash it once it stops binding well, usually every two weeks (if I can even remember to). Washing it makes it bind tighter, and go back to it's original tightness.

[karson]

ya i wash mine once a week
it stops binding well after around 4?days

[tekla]

Can you smell it?  Then it's time.

[Carson]

I wear a tank top under mine always so I wash it when it starts to smell or its stops binding well. I have 3 that I rotate through so I usually wash one a week.

[LilDoberman]

Totally depends if you wear something under it or not.  I wear a shirt under mine and wear mine 2 or 3 times before washing.  Once summer comes back around I'll be back to washing daily.

[Sean]

It also depends on what material the binder is made out of.

I find that the tri-top doesn't absorb sweat and odor particularly fast. Meanwhile, if I so much as breathe near a compression shirt of mine, it smells.

[Tad]

I have yet to find that my tri top picks up smell. I wash it when I remember too, every few weeks typically.

[Lee11]

I mostly wear compression tanks and wash after every wear.....

[Shadowlyc]

I tend to wash it once a week or when I can start to smell it, whichever comes first.

[spacial]

Has anyone every used Febrze?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Febreze

I recently wanted to wear a particularl shirt. It was, frankly, smelly. used this stuff and it worked!

Not suggesting it as a subtitute for washing, of course, but in a pinch, so handy.

[Elijah3291]

I wash mine after wearing it maybe 4-5 times

[Nikolai_S]

I'm with Tad. I have a tri-top, the worst it's ever gotten is a tad musty. I feel slightly unhygienic washing mine infrequently, but the laundry situation in my house is bad to start with. Anyway, it's better than when I was wearing one sports bra 24/7 as long as I could get away with it. My dysphoria was unbearable without it, those days.

[JosephKT]

Depends.  I have two binders and one I wash more than the other.  I'm a martial artist and it's considered good etiquette to try and keep as much body odor off as possible considering the amount of close contact one engages in.  So the one I wear for when I work out and teach I wash every other day I work.  The other binder I use more often for when I'm going out and tends to carry a lightly layered scent of various deodorants or colognes, once I start not liking what it smells like I wash it.  I'm pretty sensitive to smells though so I may be washing my binders more than necessary for purely hygiene reasons.

[Jeh]

How do you guys wash your binder to get it to bind tightly again? Do you machine wash them? I'm scared to put mine in a washing machine, I can't afford for it to wear out quickly. Does hand washing it help it renew it's bindyness?

[JosephKT]

you can usually machine wash pretty easily, I just hand wash because I hand wash a lot of my clothing, and to save water and money.  I find air drying seems to make the biggest difference in renewing a bit on tightness.

[Andy]

For the longest time I was afraid to wash my binders for fear of shrinking, etc. Then I started washing them but not putting them in the dryer, or pulling them out of the dryer after 10 minutes or so. Eventually, I got tired of all that fussin' (seemed so girly) and just started to wash them and dry them with a regular load and they are fine--the dryer actually tightens them up a bit, and it's fine.

BUT!

Remember that thread of "You know you think like a guy when..."? Well, you know you think like a guy when you put all the different colors together into one big load, so now I have 3 Underworks T-shirts that are....pink! What a dope. Must have put them in with a red T-shirt. So, if anyone knows how to get them white again, I'd be most grateful! They've been washed a million times since then, with bleach too...and sadly, still pink!  What a dummy!!