A Tip from Emilio:  Prolong the life of your clothing.

1.  Do not wear your product repeatedly in hot showers, hot tubs, steam rooms, saunas, and do not wash them repeatedly in hot water.  This one particularly applies to items you might swim in, like our tri shorts and tops. Repeated exposure to hot water and hot surfaces burns the spandex fibers, leaving the material prematurely diaphanous (see-through).  Do not put the item in the dryer, do not place it near a heater, and do not dry it in a high-heat hair dryer, oven, or microwave; and yes people have done all these.  Suit spinners are fine, but nothing that emits heat.

 2.  Wash immediately after wearing.  If you cannot wash immediately, at least rinse the garment right after removing. If you are the type of person who only does wash once a week, your triathlon clothing may not last for long, but the oder will.  The longer sweat and and the above mentioned chemicals sit on your clothing the more likely that oder will remain, even after washing, and the more permanent that odor will become.  Remember, oder is caused by bacteria.

 3.  Use the product and hang it up.  Have you ever pulled something from a drawer, like a sock, swimsuit, or underwear, and stretched the garment to find that it stays stretched out? It no longer has “elasticity.” It has deteriorated and dried up, not from use, but just from sitting in that drawer.  After washing hang the garment instead of storing it in a drawer.

4.  Chlorine will shorten the life of any garment. Swimming pools will regularly be “super-chlorinated” (a process done to burn up the pollutants with strong oxidizing chemicals) and there will be spots of excessively concentrated chlorine that will ruin garments.  An occasional swim may not hurt it, but repeated use of any garment in chlorine will eventually ruin it.  Remember, nothing that stretches is chlorine proof.

 5.  There are many chemicals which will stain and discolor fabric.  These effects may or may not become permanent, depending upon what they are, and how quickly they are washed after use.  A number of products discolor white fabric, including deodorant, hair products (such as goop, hair gel, hair spray), salt water, chlorine, sunscreen, lotions, body glide, chamois cream, vaseline, and energy gels and drinks, and sugared soft drinks, to name a few.  It is not uncommon for white garments to discolor over time just from repeated use, and it will discolor faster due to the growth of bacteria within just a few hours if not washed immediately after wearing.  

6.  Dry clean as a last resort.  The stains may, or may not go away, much of it depends on your own personal body chemistry.  As a last resort, dry cleaning may help, but there is no guarantee of this either. 

 7.  Get your race number body marking after you are dressed. Do not get your body marked before putting on your race kit.  Those permanent ink markers leave PERMANENT stains on clothing.  The stains will never come out.

And finally, the worst, yet least-known destroyer of swimming, cycling, running, and triathlon clothing:

 8.   Do not wrap your garment in a towel and do not stuff it in a gear bag.  Also keep it out of plastic bags.  The best thing to do after using a garment is to rinse it immediately in cold water, gently ring it out, and let it breathe. Let it get lots of air...fresh air. Put it on a hanger, hang it on the outside of your pack, or place it in a large mesh pocket that gets a lot of air.  De Soto Transition Packs offer such pockets. 

Heed these words and make your clothing last longer!

Emilio De Soto - Founder & Chief Innovation Jedi