Contains affiliate links. All opinions are honest, as always.
Are you looking for quick, easy and thrifty ways to keep your clothes, accessories and homeware looking newer for longer? Looking after your things is one of the best (and most affordable) ways to be eco friendly. Buying a new replacement when the old one can be spruced up is wasteful and can add to landfill. But there are lots of easy ways to make your things last longer and repair them.
With a little ingenuity, you can easily make your favourites things last longer, either by looking after better them in the first place, or mending or sprucing them up when they start to show their age.
So here is my list of 13 ways to ways to make your things last longer, I hope they help you save money and get more wear from your things.
Get The Dye Out To Make Things Last Longer
This is one of my favourite ways to make clothes (or any fabric) last longer. I recently dyed a very faded black pair of dungarees using Dylon black machine dye. Before, they were so faded and sad-looking as they are about five years old.
Using Dylon Machine Dye is SO easy, it’s really come on since the days when you had to add salt too. You just snip off the corner of the packet, tip it into the bottom of the washing machine drum, add the (clean and dry) item, and set it to a 40 degree wash. One more wash at 40 degrees with detergent and your rejuvenated clothes are ready to dry. I used one packet for a pair of dungarees.
Just weigh whatever you’re dying and you and easily work out how many packets you’ll need. One pack will dye up to 500g of fabric to the full shade or rejuvenate the colour on up to 1kg of fabric. It only works on natural fibres though. This means it won’t have any effect on polyester, and would give a mottled effect on polycotton.
Before and after dying my cotton dungarees.
TIP: Although the dye doesn’t stick to the washing machine drum, it can collect on the rubber seal, so be sure to wipe it out before using it again. I did a boil wash and then a couple of loads of dark washing before I used it on lights again, just to be on the safe side!
Dying is also a great way to give new life to old textiles. My mum dyed my old sheets lilac when I was a teenager and I loved them.
I dyed some very old cotton throws that I had when I was at uni, to cover my vintage Ercol sofa and chair. I can’t justify recovering the navy blue cushions so dying them grey is a good cheap option in the meantime. They’ve faded a bit now, as it was a few years ago, so I might dye them black.
UPDATE – I have dyed them now and sewn them into cheat’s covers, find out how.
Use Whitening Sachets with Sheets To Make Them White Again
These GLOWHITE Ultra sachets are a little bit magic. Just pop one in your washing machine to revive white clothes or bed linen and it comes out looking like new.
They’ve saved our white duvet cover from many muddy cat foot prints, and they’re also great for school shirts and polo shirts.
Ask Your Local Cobbler To Make Shoes and Boots Last Longer
When the soles of your shoes or boots start to wear thin, or come away from the main shoe, it’s so easy to get them repaired or re-soled. If you don’t have a cobbler in your local town, many key-cutting places or dry cleaners can do it too.
It’s such a good investment with expensive shoes, or when you’ve found the perfect pair that doesn’t give you blisters!
They’ll also reheel stilettos too, which you’ll have to do more frequently as they wear out quicker.
Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash.
Give Shoes A Quick Polish To Make Them Look New
I’m sounding like my dad here, but old-fashioned shoe polish really does work wonders, transforming them from scuffed to polished in minutes.
My lovely dad always used to polish our school shoes when we were little and I remember having to dodge bits of newspaper on the floor as they dried. Now I’m doing the same! I actually tried to borrow some brown show polish from him but it was all crusty so I bought my own.
This KIWI instant polish has a sponge attached so it’s really quick and easy to use. You just buff it in, and wait for it to dry. It took me under ten minutes to make my old brown boots look almost like new again. Here I’ve done half the boot, and you can really see the difference.
I favour patent school shoes for my girls as they are much harder wearing. We’ve got some special patent repair stuff that you paint on like nail varnish. It works so well at making them look like new again.
Clean White Trainers with Household Products
There are lots of affordable ways to clean your white trainers: toothpaste and bicarbonate of soda are my favourites. Here are some tutorials if you want to rescue dirty white trainers.
Spray Shoes and Boots With Water Repellant To Protect Them
The best way to keep fabric or suede shoes looking good for longer is to coat them with a water and dirt repellent spray. It’s so quick and easy to do and makes a real difference.
Pin me!
Re-Waterproof Your Raincoat To Give It a New Lease of Life
Did you know that waterproof coats can lose their waterproofness over time? Yes, even the expensive ones! Luckily there’s a quick and easy hack to revive them. You can wash them with this special stuff and then recoat them in the washing machine using this pack.
Mend Your Clothes and Enjoy Them For Longer
If a seam is coming apart, it’s really easy to turn it inside out and hand sew it up before it gets worse. Small holes can also be sewn up pretty easily, as long as you can get a good colour match.
This is my absolute favourite jumper and it’s at least 7 years old. It’s faded quite a bit but luckily faded evenly. I have fixed so many holes in it over the years and found the perfect colour.
UPDATE: I have disguised this stitching now by adding a pink leopard print ribbon along the seams, see it here.
Try Visible Mending
Visible Mending is a technique where you don’t try to keep your darning invisible. This makes it perfect if your sewing skills aren’t the best. It looks really pretty too – this is a great visible mending tutorial.
I mended a small hole in a t-shirt by patching the back and adding a pink heart.
Get Broken Zips Replaced
If the zip on your coat or jeans breaks, it’s a pretty easy replacement job for someone who knows what they’re doing! I got my coat zip replaced at our local dry cleaners for about £20. Considering the coat was about £80, and still perfect everywhere else, this was a good investment and made the coat last a few extra years.
Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash
Get Sunglasses Fixed At Your Local Optician
I was so sad when not one, but two arms fell off my sunglasses. I popped to my optician, who popped in a new screw in each pair for me, for free! They’re as good as new. And now I have a tiny screwdriver from a cracker so I’ll tighten the screws every now and then.
Wash Clothes Gently, and They’ll Last Much Longer
Look after your clothes and they’ll last longer. Washing them on a low heat, line drying if possible and only washing when they really need it are good ways to make things last longer. This will help prevent fading and shrinking, as well as saving energy. I have a few eco-friendly laundry detergents to recommend:
- You can make your own liquid laundry detergent, using my recipe which you can find here.
- Buy an Eco Egg which is very low waste and refillable . Read my review and see how cost effective it is here.
- Refill your old detergent bottle at a refill store or from Splosh. Use the code W2Z4W51ZQ7 to save 15% on your order – their cleaning products are also great.
- Try a subscription box of eco-friendly washing tablets like these from Smol. You’ll get a free trail through that link. I use Smol dishwasher tablets and laundry pods and I’m really happy with both.
Get Appliances Fixed Instead of Replacing Them
We recently got our washing machine fixed, as it was leaking. The man who came out was apologetic it cost £100 because the new door seal was so expensive.
I find it scary that you can buy a whole new washing machine for not much more than the cost of repairing it! But the washing machine is a good quality one and was definitely worth getting fixed. Here is the expensive new door seal modelled by our kitten Dot (read more about the latest addition to our family here)! We have to be extra careful when we load the washing now as she’s practically invisible in there!
I hope my list of 13 easy and thrifty ways to make your things last longer is useful, why not Pin it for later?
