Why Clothes Shrink?

[duck sauce]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28623-2004Nov5.html

according to Lucinda Ottush, who's one of the Whirlpool's fabric techonologists, it's not heat that shrinks clothes, rather the agitation from the wahsing. shrinkage is caused by the tumbling action as the garments hit the sides of the dryer and agitation from the washing machine.

[Rivet Head]

I would have to agree...I had a pair of LVC 1955's that I bought and only soaked for many years. They had shrunk 2" in the waist and 3" in the length. After washing them once in the washer in cold water, they shrunk another 1" in the waist and 1" in the length.

[rungo]

I have to disagree with this.

If you've ever washed a delicate fabric in a washing machine on a too high agitation setting, it actually stretches the garment/fabric. I have found this to occur with lace (no homo) and light linen fabric.

I suppose this could be somewhat fabric specific, but theres really no be all end all to how much fabrics will shrink. As mentioned in the article, although somewhat indirectly, the relative humidity of whatever climate you happen to be in will affect the shrinkage of your fabrics.

[JohnnyRed]

edit nevermind

[english]

huh, this is interesting. i don't know if it's a proper analogy, but, if you've ever shaken a jar of coins, all of the small ones go to the bottom as they sift through the larger coins. must be a similar thing with the warp and weft as the fabric is agitated causing the threads to stack tighter.

[Charlie Delta]

The type of shrinkage talked about here ha nothing to do with shrinkage happening due to the fabric being unsanforized.

[rnrswitch]

Water...... shrinkage.

[beatle]

cloths shrink so they fit better***magic*****