How often to clean trousers?

Now, I always though you cleaned everything after one wear, but I've found it's more commonplace not to do that. So, how many do you usually wear trousers before washing them?

Zack:
I have at least ten (10) 3-peice suits (and I wear my pocket watch on my vest), 15 various colored dress slacks and I send my suits (as a complete set), and slacks to the drycleaner at or around the 3 month timeframe (albeit with respect to dirt, wrinkles and odor).

“You cannot climb the ladder of success dressed in the costume of failure.” Zig Ziglar

For suits I dry clean once every 4-6 wears depending on wear time and how much I was sweating or doing. For slacks I wash about every 3rd wear.

It really depends on what I used them for, what I will be using them for, where I am going and why. If I change after work for dinner I am not going to toss them in the laundry two hours later. I do not was my work pants daily. I wash them every second day on average. Sometimes I change into nice pants for meetings and forget about the other pair for a week. If I wear a pair to the opera and dinner they may well end up in the laundry as they have the equivalent of a days wear. Now, if it dry clean only that is a different story... Usually at least three wearings for a suit.

Before smoking bans I would toss all cloths into the laundry regardless of the amount of time they were worn when in a smoke filled atmosphere. There are just too many variables to answer your question. Having said that, I think you will find a skewed representation on this forum.

I go by look and smell. If they are getting a bit wrinkly and/or I can detect an odor, they get washed or dry cleaned. Sometimes that is one wear, sometimes it is as many as three or four. I don't arbitrarily wash them after a certain number of wears.

If we are speaking of wool, believe that dry cleaning should be done only as often as dictated by degree of dirt, odor and wrinkles. Believe that dry cleaning ultimately damages the fabric. Therefore, I brush my woolens after every (or almost ever) wearing, and try to air them out outside when the weather is nice.

john parker said:

If we are speaking of wool, believe that dry cleaning should be done only as often as dictated by degree of dirt, odor and wrinkles. Believe that dry cleaning ultimately damages the fabric. Therefore, I brush my woolens after every (or almost ever) wearing, and try to air them out outside when the weather is nice.

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Same here. I have had my trousers pressed but not cleaned.

When I was wearing dress pants to work, I would wear them only to work - I'd put them on moments before going out the door and take them off the instant I got home. I would cycle between three or four different pants in this fashion and dry clean them once every couple of months. Seemed to work fine for me - I was generally considered the best dressed guy at work.

My casual pants get washed far more frequently as they experience a lot more "living".

For drycleaning, the correct answer is "as infrequently as possible." By having a rotation of clothes and not wearing particular pants for a few days in between wearings, but letting them hang, you let them "recover" and they aren't nearly as bad as back-to-back wearings.


Really, for washable clothes too, the same applies, but in a more "whenever they need it" rather than "as seldom as possible."

For dress slacks in daily back to back wearings, 2-3 unless something happens that requires them to be cleaned sooner (slush in winter, dirt, etc.). I find my Aeron chair to be more detrimental to the life of the fabric than any dry cleaners I've ever experienced.