How Often Do Americans Do Laundry?

Sometimes, laundry feels like a never-ending battle. No matter how many loads you do in a day, there’s always more to be done, in addition to folding and putting it away. But how often do people actually wash some of their clothes or their linens?

At Mulberrys Garment Care, we wanted to find out. So we conducted an internet survey of just over 1000 Americans and asked them a variety of questions relating to their laundry habits. Some of the results were expected, but some of them were shocking.

How Often Do People Wash Their Underwear?

One of the most surprising results was on how often people washed their underwear. Most people said they washed them after one to two wears. But, a shocking number of people responded saying they never washed them. Nearly 20% of men said they never did compared to just over 10% of women.

When we broke it down by age group, middle aged people were the least clean, having the highest response of never cleaning. Unexpectedly, younger people (aged 18-24) had the lowest response rate of not cleaning, and had the highest response rate of 1-2 wears.

How Often Do People Wash Their Jeans?

How often you should wash your jeans has been a popular topic of discussion in the last few years. When comparing men and women, more men said they washed their jeans less frequently than women. Over half of women said they wash their jeans after just 1-2 wears.

Average Number of Laundry Loads Per Week

When it came to general laundry habits, we were interested to see how many loads of laundry Americans typically do a week as well as what age people started doing their own laundry.

When looking at different age groups, the most common response for each group was 4-5 loads a week. Again, a never-ending battle.

What Age Do People Start Doing Their Own Laundry?

On the whole, women were more likely to start doing their own laundry earlier than men. Older men in particular said they still had someone doing their laundry at nearly 1 out of 10.

How Often Do People Wash Their Bedding?

Another of the most surprising insights from the survey was on washing sheets. When it came to washing your own bedding, around 7% of men said they only wash their sheets every 6 months. Over 10% of men said they couldn’t remember the last time they did it.

For guest sheets, things get pretty gross. 17% of men and 7% of women say they never wash their guest sheets after someone stays over.

How Often Do People Take Their Suits to the Dry Cleaners?

When it came to dry cleaning habits, we asked how often people clean suits. Interestingly, nearly a third of men said they don’t own one. Otherwise, the spread was pretty even for responses.

How Much Money Do People Spend on Dry Cleaning?

Finally, we looked at how much people spend on dry cleaning every month. Younger people said they spend the most, with an average of nearly $90 a month.

Most people, however, said they spend less than $50 a month.

Just about everyone has laundry to do, and overall, it seems that Americans are doing it pretty frequently. However, this survey showed that there’s a good percentage out there that have some… unique… habits when it comes to doing the wash. Laundry isn’t a task that most people enjoy — it’s a chore — but it is something that has to be done. Mulberrys offers a range of convenient options and services to make dry cleaning and laundry easier than ever, including dry cleaning pickup and delivery, our popular same day dry cleaning service, and conveniently located dry cleaning lockers in the San Francisco area.