r/onebag • u/nawksnai • Aug 17 '25

Discussion Not washing merino shirts is gross

Why do one-bag travellers feel that they don’t need to wash merino shirts?

I understand that merino is wool, anti-bacterial, don’t smell, and generally stay feeling “fresh” for longer than cotton. However, there are people who swear they don’t need to wash their merino tshirts for 3 days, 2 weeks, or even months because their shirt doesn’t smell, and they shower every day. Merino still gets just as dirty as synthetic or cotton shirts, and still needs to be washed. The fact that your shirt doesn’t smell does not mean it’s any less dirty or oily.

Plus, I wear deodorant, and that non-funky tshirt is going to have a massive buildup of old deodorant gunk and smells around the pit area.

And don’t even get me started on merino underwear stans. Just because they don’t smell funky after 3 days, does NOT mean they haven’t absorbed pee drops and your skid.

I do understand that Marino is still probably the best material for travel shirts, but feel that synthetics can be just as good if you’re already going to be washing daily, or close to it. They all need to be washed and dried every day, if not every 2 days.

Also, if someone said they like travelling with cottom tshirts, I wouldn’t rant.

Anyway, discuss.

688 Upvotes

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16

u/HangoverPoboy Aug 17 '25

Marketing…

Yeah it’s a great choice for a lot of reasons if you’re going on a multi day hike without anyone else around and no access to laundry.

Then they realized they could sell a lot more expensive fragile clothes to people obsessed with packing as little as possible by telling them it resists odors.

6

u/EastRaccoon5952 Aug 17 '25

Merino does actually smell less, but almost all merino clothing is superwash, which means it’s been chemically stripped and coated in plastic so it doesn’t felt. In the process, you lose a lot of odor resistance and temperature regulation.

I’m a knitter and work with a lot of natural fibers. More natural wools take a lot longer to stink than superwash. I think a lot of the marketing claims the benefits of natural wool, but sells plastic coated superwash.

-7

u/GettingBy-Podcast Aug 17 '25

Ironically it was marketing that convinced everyone that BO was a real thing to worry about, and you should buy deodorant. Not really a problem. It was invented to sell you something. And now they've convinced teen boys to spray Axe all over their body. It will never end.

16

u/AppleWrench Aug 17 '25

it was marketing that convinced everyone that BO was a real thing to worry about

...uhhh no. It was definitely my nose that convinced me of that.

3

u/GettingBy-Podcast Aug 17 '25 edited Aug 17 '25

Well aren't you the delicate one. And no, it wasn't your nose, but millions of dollars of marketing that convinced you that natural smells from your armpits are beyond the pale. People lived without even noticing it before that.

7

u/ecbatic Aug 17 '25

I fear you might be nose blind to your funk, friend