You've found the famous Dave's Garden website! Join this friendly global community that shares tips and ideas for home and gardens, along with seeds and plants!
Check out the DG homepage for a brief overview of what you'll find in this gardening mega-site.
Login
If you don't have an account yet, visit the registration page to sign up.
Whenever I soak a tee shirt in my sink using cold water, I often find a large hole, sometimes 4 inches in diameter when I remove the garment. I pour some Wisk or Tide detergent onto the stain and gently rub. Next, I place the shirt in a sinkful of cold water for about 1 hour. When I remove the garment, I often find a large hole or 2 in the garment. What has happened? I use no bleach. I have ruined many of my favorite tee shirts.
I'd take a look at the age of the t-shirts and also the activities you're doing while you're wearing them. Detergent won't create holes in a t-shirt that was undamaged and in good condition to begin with, so I suspect the holes came from somewhere else and just become larger as you're rubbing in detergent and washing them.
Do you by any chance work with any sort of acid while you're wearing the t-shirts? The reason I ask is that I went to school for chemistry and had this happen to me all the time--what happens is a tiny bit of acid splashes on the t-shirt (it doesn't have to be much, you'd probably never even notice that any splashed on you). Nothing happens to the t-shirt after that until you go to wash it, then when you wash it all of a sudden you'll find holes in it. Pretty much all the t-shirts I had in grad school had holes in them because of this. Other types of chemicals might have a similar effect too.
If you don't work with acid at all then it could be that the t-shirts are a little old and worn and have gotten a tiny hole in them from something else (catching on a rosebush while you're weeding, etc) and then the little bit of agitation and rubbing that you do is enough to make the hole bigger.
