I haven't seen this fabric care lable before!!

[cvillewasherbo]

Just bought a new pair of pants at Penny's this weekend. St. John's Bay brand, black, straight front--no pleats, relaxed fit, 100% cotton, made in Nicaragua. Fabric care label reads, "machine wash warm with like colors, durable press cycle, DO NOT USE FABRIC SOFTENER, only non-chlorine bleach as needed, tumble dry medium, DO NOT USE FABRIC SOFTENER SHEETS, remove from dryer promptly for wrinkle free appearance. Warm iron as needed. DO NOT DRY CLEAN."

CAPS for the softener parts are mine added, the dry clean message in caps is theirs.

I've never seen any instructions or warnings about fabric softeners or dryer sheets on clothes labels before. Have you? Just curious, is this a new thing nowadays? Any particular reason for it?

These pants were marketed as being "wrinkle free" and "stain resistant," does this have anything to do with the care instructions?

Looking forward to your thoughts and comments. BYW, I love the pants, the way they feel, they don't wrinkle and the fit is extra nice. I'm a BIG and Tall guy. So when I find some pants that fit nice and feel nice, I tend to buy up all that there is. Shirts are never a problem.

Happy label reading!!!

Courtney in Waynesboro VA

 

[spoodles]

The stain resistant and wrinkle free properties are why you shouldn't use softeners. You could use them and not cause any harm to the trousers, but they have obviously been treated with something to give them those properties and using a softener might mean that after washing they aren't stain resistant and could get wrinkles more easily, as the fibres have been coated in softener preventing whatever was used to treat them originally from working.

A lot of waterproof/showerproof garments (like coats and jackets) also state not to use softeners for similar reasons.

 

[jamiel]

Breathable synthetics also aren't well suited to fabric softener. Actually, probably would do well to rinse 2x any of these garments with built-in stain repellent...you want to get ALL detergent (i.e. surfactant--hydrophilic) residues off so the "hydrophobic...i.e. repellent" treatment can work.

 

[whirlcool]

New Dockers With Teflon

I have a few pairs of Dockers trousers that have this same label. It seems that the pants have been treated with Teflon to increase the stain resistance. If you use fabric softner OR powdered detergent the Teflon stain resistance won't work as designed. I have used powdered Persil on mine and haven't had any problems, but then again I normally don't get stains on my trousers.
This is nanotechnology at work. Soon we will begin seeing more products using this technology.

CNN.com - Little robots in your pants - Jan. 10, 2004

 

[appnut]

I'm a Big and Tall guy!!

Let's see the great new pants on you!!