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Why clothes shrink and how to unshrink them

Ellsworth Toohey
Jan 14, 2026
∙ Paid

Ljupco Smokovski/shutterstock.com

Your favorite cotton shirt didn’t shrink because you did something wrong. It shrank because the fibers finally relaxed. Natural fibers like cotton and linen contain millions of tiny cellulose molecules that naturally exist in coiled, crinkled shapes, reports The Conversation. During manufacturing, these fibers get mechan…

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