What the Favorite: Caring for Cotton

We want our clothes and undergarments to last as long as possible while keeping the same quality as when we first bought them. The way we care for them matters. The Big Favorite pieces were made to last and here are some ways to take the best care of them.

Our Circular Essentials 

Pima Cotton is the softest cotton in the world. It has a longer staple fiber than any other cotton which gives it its soft hand feel, added strength, wrinkle resistance, and the ability to be upcycled at end of life. This is what we've fabricated all of our circular essentials in.

Have you ever had a shirt that you couldn’t throw in the dryer along with all your other items? Those days are over with The Big Favorite. All of our pieces are sanforized or pre-shrunk so no need to worry about shrinking in the wash. Here's what our customers are saying:

“I don’t have to be precious about my TBF in the washer and dryer. It always seems to come out softer than before. In fact, I can actually *feel* The Big Favorite before I even see it.” - John

Caring for Circular Essentials 

We always recommend washing cold and hanging dry as the most energy-efficient option. However, these can get beat up in the washer and dryer while retaining their quality so if washing cold or warm and tumble drying with low heat is preferred, that's fine too. 

How to get stains out of Cotton

Two words: Hydrogen Peroxide. Wash the stain with a little bit of soap, then spray Hydrogen Peroxide on it and let it dry. You can repeat a couple of times if needed. The stain should disappear!

Pro-tip: use dryer balls instead of sheets. Dryer sheets are single-use and contain chemical fragrances. Wool dryer balls are an eco-friendly alternative being natural, chemical-free, and reusable. Try these Grove Co. dryer balls here. 

Undyed

What does Undyed mean? It's literally the color of raw cotton. They have zero chemical dyes which means it’s better for your skin and better for our planet. Undyed fabrics require significantly fewer resources and processing than their dyed counterparts. For example, each of our Undyed Crewnecks saves 14L of water, 1.5kg of steam energy, and 5kg of C02 electricity emissions. 

Caring for Undyed

You can throw them in with whites, just hold the bleach. The same as the circular essentials, we recommend washing cold and hanging dry but washing warm and tumble drying is also an option.

Naturally-Dyed 

If you've bought any color beyond black, white, navy and Undyed, these pieces are dyed using natural and foraged materials. Each piece has been specially hand-dyed by our Dye Artist Partner, Audrey Louise Reynolds. These will fade over time as they don't have harsh fixatives to permanently set the color. See our blog post about the negative environmental impacts of synthetic dyes here. The hand-dyed pieces require a little extra care. We recommend you wash cold and hang dry for minimal fading. Each piece is unique, so variations in color should be embraced. 

Underwear & Intimates

We recommend washing any brand's underwear in cold water on a delicate cycle and laying flat to dry for minimal wear and tear. To prohibit microplastic shedding, try a guppyfriend bag or try this organic cotton mesh laundry bag from Simple Ecology here to protect your delicates in the wash cycle.

Pro Detergent Tips

Dirty Labs is a cleaning innovations lab on a mission to take the dirty out of cleaning. They're creating hyper-efficient, nontoxic, biodegradable cleaners, starting with laundry.

Try out Dropps laundry pods. They are cruelty-free, made with plant-based ingredients, and use compostable packaging with 100% carbon-neutral shipping. Just drop a pod in the wash when it’s time to do some laundry.

Cleancult is doing some great things for the environment like ditching single-use plastic for their products and using refillable glass bottles. They also send your laundry refills in low-waste, paper-based cartons. 

We also love Blueland. They make laundry tablets that are free of plastic and ship in compostable packaging. No petroleum, artificial fragrances, or dyes are used.