How to Prevent Pilling On Your Clothes

If you’ve ever done your own laundry, you’d have noticed some of your softer tops and bottoms coming back with little balls of “fuzz”. Yanking on them can pull them out but can leave your tops feeling a little more threadbare than usual. Those are called “pills”. Pills on your clothes are clumps of loose fibres that have tangled together in tiny balls. They form when there is abrasion during use and wash. Some fabrics are more likely to pill than others, especially softer fabrics that can have weak fibres. If you’re looking to start your journey towards a more sustainable lifestyle, or just want to make your clothes last longer to get more bang for your buck, here’s how you can prevent pilling on your clothes.

Sort Your Laundry

We’ve all been there – the temptation to just ball all your clothes and dump them into the washing machine can be very strong and many of us succumb to it regularly. However, sorting your laundry, not just by colour, but by how delicate they are, can help to reduce the likelihood of pilling. Separate your delicate items from sturdier fabrics like jeans and denim to prevent abrasion and fibre transfer.

Be Gentle

It’s quite self-explanatory, but you need to be gentle with your more delicate fabrics. Follow the care label that comes with your item. Head to the brand’s website to check for specific instructions on how to best care for your item. For softer clothes, it is generally recommended to hand wash them or to use your washing machine’s gentle cycle to prevent too much abrasion for too long during the wash cycle. Using gentle detergents without too many strong and harmful chemicals can also protect your fabric’s integrity and keep the fibres from breaking down and pilling.

Wash Inside Out

It’s quite a low-tech solution but it works surprisingly well! Just turning your top or bottom inside out before washing it can significantly reduce the pilling on the outside of your item. This helps to protect the outer layer from abrasion against other clothes and trimmings like zippers and buttons.

Avoid the Dryer

If you live in a country without much sunshine or in a house without space to hang your clothes to dry, then having a dryer is inevitable. But, as far possible, avoid using the dryer for your more delicate items, as they increase the amount of abrasion your clothes are subjected to. If you can, put them on the shortest setting and remove the delicate items from the dryer as soon as possible.

Some people also recommend adding fabric softener when you’re rinsing your clothes, as it can coat the fibres of the fabric and lessen abrasion. Ensure that the fabric that you’re washing can handle the fabric softener without any damage.

Let your clothes give you the joy, happiness that you deserve by taking care of them well. Making your clothes last longer is also friendlier to our precious earth as you don’t have to replace and repurchase for longer.