Should You Wash New Clothes Before You Wear Them?

Buying new clothing is exciting. So exciting, in fact, that you probably want to put on your new pieces and show them off as soon as possible, right? But when you do, there’s probably a small part of you wondering, “Wait, should I have washed this first?”

To answer that question once and for all, we spoke with two experts about whether there are health and safety considerations you should keep in mind when deciding whether or not to wash new clothes before wearing. The short answer: The risk is yours to take. But if you want to follow expert advice, you should probably wash your new clothes before wearing them.

Why You Should Wash Your New Clothes Before Wearing

The main reason to give your clothes a pre-wear wash is that there may be chemicals on the clothing that—in high enough levels, and with enough exposure over time—can be harmful. Examples include flame retardants, and, most commonly, dyes.

“Some dyes are not chemically bound to the fibers, meaning that they can migrate to the skin and cause dye-specific irritation or dermatitis,” says Glenn Morrison, Ph.D., a professor of environmental sciences and engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Gillings School of Global Public Health.

By washing clothing with heavy dyes, you can “lower the concentration of dyes making it less likely—though not impossible—to develop an itchy rash if you are someone who is allergic,” says Jeff Yu, M.D., a dermatologist at Massachusetts General Hospital who specializes in allergic contact dermatitis.

Formaldehyde resin, a known carcinogen, can also sometimes be found in clothing. This is especially common with cotton or linen dress shirts, or uniforms that are meant to stay wrinkle-free without ironing, Yu says. So, if you wear a uniform for work, it may be especially important to wash it before wearing, especially since you’ll probably be wearing it for long periods of time.

Does it matter if you buy the new item of clothing online or in-store?

In short, maybe.

“You may have noticed that clothing can smell different depending on where you purchased it from,” says Morrison. “This is evidence that its recent history influences what attaches to the article of clothing. So there are probably differences, but we don’t know if they are meaningful.”

According to Morrison, it’s likely that clothing that was displayed in a store will have fewer traces of potentially harmful chemicals from manufacturing and shipping, but that other chemicals from packaging or the store can also attach to clothing. Yu also notes that clothing that’s been sitting on a mannequin for some time has likely collected a fair amount of dust—there’s another reason to wash before you wear. Secondhand clothing, too, can carry dust, environmental allergens, and fragrances, he adds.

What You’re Not Preventing When You Wash New Clothing

While washing new clothing before wearing it is a good precaution to follow, the experts also say that this doesn’t always remove all cause for concern completely.

“Using detergents can help to some degree, but many chemicals, like synthetic dyes, are intentionally difficult to remove or are just persistent,” Morrison says. "The good news is that’s telling us that it is difficult to get the chemicals off the clothing, [so] it will be slow to migrate to our skin, too.”

On the other hand, Morrison says that synthetic fabrics like polyester do not hold dyes well, so they’re more likely to “leach out” and cause an allergic reaction.

If you are concerned about chemical allergens, Yu recommends seeing a dermatologist who can do patch testing. At the same time, Yu stresses that most often any skin irritation caused by clothing isn’t an allergic reaction to a chemical, but to an irritant like a coarse wool sweater.

“You’re not allergic to the wool, but the fabric can cause folks with sensitive skin to itch,” he says. In that case, it might not be a matter of washing or not washing your new clothing, but whether the material is one you should be wearing at all.