Personal hygiene is important and I have a bath or take a shower at least once a day. This means that when I get dressed in the morning I am putting my clothes onto a clean body, and I am putting clean clothes on too. Yes, I've come to the point at last, which has been highlighted by my current capsule wardrobe experience. Do we need to wear different clothes every day? Underwear maybe, but I put on a clean top every morning, though I will wear the bottoms several times so long as they look clean. As I have limited myself to five tops, which I will be wearing over a nine day period, I have already hand washed a couple of them, but was this really necessary?
I wore this outfit on Monday, but with different accessories. The purple top wasn't dirty and neither were the trousers, in spite of getting wet, but I still washed the top without even thinking about it. This meant I was using water, which is a precious resource in Spain, when I didn't need to. Whenever the laundry basket is full the washing machine goes on, which is using electricity as well as water. If I wore my tops a couple of times instead of just once, the washing machine wouldn't need to be used as frequently. If I wasn't as clean, the environment would definitely benefit.
I'm not sure when this habit began. When I went to school we wore a school uniform, and I cannot remember having more than a couple of blouses and skirts. I joined the Women's Royal Navy and wore a uniform - again, I didn't have enough items to change them everyday, and I only did the washing at the weekend. Perhaps it was after I had children? Children do get dirty and sometimes have to wear more than one outfit a day, plus mothers find it difficult not to get messy too, so the washing machine was on almost constantly. I think I will have to blame it on the children!
