Do my clean clothes, straight out the wash (and hang dried) weight more or less than dirty clothes that I’ve been wearing for a few days (a jumper for example)?
For sake of argument let us assume I’ve washed the clothes with a washing liquid and fabric softener and the dirty clothes have merely been worn and have no noticeable stains or bits of mud etc. but had lost its washed smell and maybe even is beginning to smell a bit dirty.
Now I know the answer might depend on a hugely massive number of factors, but I guess it boils down to whether the washing liquids have an appreciable weight compared to the bits my jumper might have picked up and whether the garment might have even shed a few fibres along the way.
Edit: I appreciate this may be a stupid question however an odd but enquiring mind wants to know.
Weigh the lint in your dryer’s lint screen; that’s how much weight your clothes have lost, at least from their own original mass. They’ve probably lost some lint in the washing machine too, but you don’t typically see that since it gets washed down the drain.
As for trading odiferous skin particles and secretions for fragrance and fabric softener…I’d guess that some fabric softener still remains from the last time you washed/dried your clothes, so the removal of dirt overall leads to a reduction in the weight of your shirts and shorts.
As anyone who’s packed a suitcase at the end of a vacation knows, dirty clothes tend to have, well, dirt in them, both visible and invisible, and typically are damper - and thus heavier - than fresh clothes. A week in a hot or humid climate and I’d bet the return load is a good pound or more extra in dirt and retained sweat; some measurable amount even in a cool, dry environment.
I can’t really think of any circumstance where clean clothes would weigh more unless they’re incompletely dried.
Might depend on whether you’ve ever washed them. New clothes often have “sizing” in them, which stiffens the cloth so it can be cut more precisely. ETA: so if you’ve never washed them, they have sizing and dirt weighing them down. How awesome can you get?
But it’s mass, not volume, that determines weight. When you wash a cotton shirt that shrinks the first time you wash it, the extra mass just gets compacted into a smaller, and thus denser, volume, right?
