Hello & Goodbye: April 2014

Tan & Coral Linen Dress, Personal Photo

This post is rather long, but here's what I purchased and purged this April. I noticed some themes this month that I wanted to address in greater detail, which is why I didn't combine these purchases with the ones from May: the word count would have been enormous. Or, more so than it already was. I may need to work on being a little more succinct. That's never been a strong point of my writing, as I'm sure you can tell!

Hello & Goodbye: May 2014

I'm not reviewing my purchases from April yet, because there's something else I'd like to discuss along with them. I also didn't discard anything in May, so I only have Hello!s this time, but with many Goodbye!s to premier in June, ha.  :)

Curating: A Navy Dress Experience

Crochet Cocktail Dress by Blueband

When I first started my wardrobe plan, I knew for certain that I wanted to add a work appropriate navy dress to my closet. I've probably mentioned before, but I'm slightly obsessed with navy. An improvement from the past, when looking at my wardrobe one could only assume my life's goal was  to become the world's first navy/human hybrid species. And my sub species would have been navy-dress-human, because, really. They. are. all. cute. In other words, it's not hard for me to like any of them, so I ended up buying the first one I tried on. I found it in a thrift store while looking for some much needed work clothes. It was from Target, 100% polyester, empire waisted with a deep v-neck. To give you an idea of the inappropriateness of those cuts, let's just say I'm 27 and still fit into Forever 21 tops. 

Care: Washing Less Experiment

Laundry || Personal Photo

I've often heard that two of the best ways to make your clothing last longer are to air dry and wash less. Fair enough, as most substances will break down with either heat, water or friction ( the latter being part of what makes the washing machine so useful). And, easy enough to avoid the dryer - all you need is a drying rack, a little space, and some time.

But to not wash your clothes after every wear? I had done it in the past, but I was in a very lax environment, not to mention being a cheapo living in an apartment with no washer or dryer. Now I'm in a job where my appearance is quite visible, and have access to a washing machine whenever I need it. So after each wear, I just ran everything through the washer to make it presentable again. It was the simplest way to address my laundry, so of course I liked it. :)

Then I read this post about ways to reduce the impact of our clothing on This Kind Choice, and wondered if some of the reasons I had for washing more often didn't come from preemptively trying to fit in to my new environment by doing what I assumed others thought of as hygienic. We definitely have a huge focus on sanitation here in the U.S., and while that is awesome for a lot of things, it's overly cautious in others.

So, I figured I may as well experiment if I could get away with washing my work clothes a little less often without any repercussions (ie, someone telling me I smelled.) I didn't expect to be very successful, but I was surprised.

My clothes looked and smelled fine. There were some exceptions and I had to learn a few things along the way, but it was a very easy process, and everything turned out well. I never got told I stank, in other words.