You bought a t-shirt or a pair of jeans and you realized after trying it at home, that the size is a little too big for you. There is a problem, an expensive option could be going to a tailor and getting the clothes altered, while a cheaper option would be to shrink the apparel yourself.
Shrink Clothes on Purpose
Cotton and Wool
Before starting the actual shrinking process, you will have to determine what fabric your clothes are made of. Check the label on your clothes for this. Woolen fabric normally takes about 3 to 4 washes before it shrinks, while a cotton fabric shrinks easily, at times even after the first wash. There are certain cotton fabrics which are pre-washed before your purchase them. These clothes do not shrink after you wash them. But if the fabric is not pre-washed, it is bound to shrink after washing it for the first time. When clothes are washed in washers, the spinning causes woolen and cotton fabric to bind or pull together, thereby causing shrinkage. So, to shrink your clothes fast, give the clothes a little spin while washing and drying.
Jeans
One of the simplest fabrics to shrink is the denim, as it is very similar to cotton fabrics, just that the threading is more strong. After washing the jeans in cold water, allow it to spin for a few more minutes. This will assist in tightening the fabric by pulling the threads together. Put the jeans into the dryer and adjust the setting to 'low', so that the clothes stay in warm air for a longer period. once it is completely dry and you try to put it on, you will notice your jean has shrunk.
Polyester
Like jeans and cotton fabrics, polyester is also very easy to shrink. Wash your polyester clothing in cold water and leave them in the dryer to let them dry. Make sure that you adjust the settings on the dryer to 'high'. That is it. After drying, your polyester clothing will have shrunk from its original size.
Silk
Silk is considered to be a little hard to shrink, but not impossible. Since you do not want to harm the threading of your silk cloth by washing it in the washing machine, you normally hand wash all silk clothes. Once you have hand washed your silk clothing, air dry it by spreading it out in the sun. After this is done, put the clothing in your dryer, adjust it to medium, and leave it for 5 minutes. Be careful, not to keep the clothing in the dryer for a very long time, as it may shrink more than you want it to. Keep checking on the cloth every 5 minutes and remove it after it has shrunk as per your need.
Shrinking Clothes in the Wash
To shrink clothes in the wash, adjust your washing machine settings to 'hot water', add clothes, detergent and allow the washer to finish the complete washing cycle which should take about 15-20 minutes. Once the machine stops spinning, remove clothes and place them in the dryer. Keep the dryer settings to hot, and let them spin a complete cycle which should last for about 15 minutes. Get the clothes out and iron them. You will observe they have shrunk in size.
Another way is to allow them to drip dry. Simply wash them in a washer and lay them out flat, in the hot sun. The heat will make the fabric tighter and thus facilitate the shrinking process.
After learning various ways of shrinking your clothes, you will surely try it at home. Ensure you check the fabric of your clothes first and then use the appropriate method to shrink them. You may overdo the shrinking, so guard against it by keeping a check on the fabric after every step. In case you are not comfortable with the idea of shrinking clothes yourself, you can always go to a tailor to get them altered as per your size.
