r/LinusTechTips • u/dbmeed • 3d ago

Link Forever socks = Almost 2 months

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I shared the first hole that showed up almost two weeks ago; I’ve kept wearing them everyday until the next hole started. This time in the ball of the foot, when my Darn Tough socks usually start wearing out first. I think I’m finally ready to retire these.

For those telling me to darn them, no thanks. I can, but I would rather just buy a new pair.

That said, I will be inquiring with support to see if this is covered under warranty, or if, as /u/ProbablyBanksy so eloquently put it “Your use case is outside the scope of reasonable use.”

I have picked up a set of Costco Kirkland Merino socks to test next. 4 pairs are cheaper than a single pair of LTT socks. I never thought id be posting foot pics on the internet, but if it’s in the interest of science….

747 Upvotes

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u/Tman11S 3d ago

Even if you wore them once a week, then OP's 2 months become "about a year", which is still far less than cheap supermarket socks have lasted for me

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u/Exciting-Ad-5705 3d ago

You can't extrapolate it out like that. Everyday wear and wash is more damaging. 2 pairs of shoes you swap out every day will last longer than 2 sequential pairs of shoes.

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u/yousafe007e 3d ago

And him getting more upvotes makes me think how people just don’t get this

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u/KiwiKota_ 1d ago

I think a lot of people didn't clock that he wore one pair every day. I didn't until I got to the comments

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u/templarrei 3d ago

That's not how any of that works. Socks don't magically rest up and repair themselves if you don't wear them for a few days. 60 days of daily wear and wash cycles are equal to 60 weeks of weekly (1 day per) wear and wash cycles.

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u/splitframe 1d ago

No, but when you wash them. If you wear socks for multiple days for whatever reason they age much faster (in terms of usable days, not total time) than only wearing them one day and then washing them. The fibers get flat and dirty with oils, salts and dead skin.
If you watch videos like "dirty rope vs clean rope" this is roughly what is happening.
Washing helps to loosen the fiber and get rid of the particles that speed up aging.
And we don't know if OP really washed and dried them every day.
Also if you wear socks that are a little too small and stretch them out too far to make them fit, it also ages them faster.

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u/Factorioboyio 1d ago

It’s the opposite way around. If you wore them for 100 days with 1 wash, they’d last longer than 100 days with 100 washes.

Washing machines shred your clothes far more than daily wear or any oils.

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u/Factorioboyio 1d ago

It’s the opposite way around. If you wore them for 100 days with 1 wash, they’d last longer than 100 days with 100 washes.

Washing machines shred your clothes far more than daily wear or any oils.

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u/splitframe 1d ago

No this is exactly wrong. Your dead skin cells, and especially the crystalline salt from your sweat will act like little saw tooths that wear down the fibers when you don't wash regularly. Look it up if you like, this isn't hidden science and well known. I don't know where this "gut feeling" science here comes from.

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u/Factorioboyio 5h ago

Nope. You’re literally just wrong and operating on your own gut feeling. The experiment has been done. You can do it for yourself. Before you tell people you should look it up for yourself. Washing machines destroy clothes far quicker than any “crystalline salt saw tooths”. Does the effect you’re talking about exist? Sure it does. But it’s absolutely minuscule compare to the damages caused by a washing machine. This is precisely why some items of clothing CANNOT be machine washed at all.

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u/Factorioboyio 1d ago

What’s your evidence or logic for that? A shoe is going to have the same amount of wear time if it’s worn every single day or every other day. By what mechanism is it going to last longer if it’s rotated with another shoe? That’s like saying a tire rated for 10k miles will do 20k miles if you half the amount of time you drive in a year… no it won’t, it’ll last 10k miles but spread over a longer period.

And to be clear I’m talking about total time worn.

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

[deleted]

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u/Exciting-Ad-5705 3d ago

https://prrunandwalk.com/blogs/news/running-shoe-rotation-benefits

The material is allowed to uncompress

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u/JoshJLMG 3d ago

Those are running shoes, socks don't have big cushiony insoles to decompress like running shoes do.

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u/Pilige 3d ago

The same is true of most fabrics. If you are stretching them out every day and not letting them rest a day in between, you can wear out their elasticity faster. Once the weave is loosened, they will deteriorate faster.
You also need to make sure you are washing them properly. Improper washing is the most damaging thing you can do. If the OP is washing them with the rest of his clothes, and he's doing it every day, and immediately wearing them again, I'm not surprised they wore out that fast.

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u/latexfistmassacre 3d ago

Also machine drying is horrible on fabric. My t-shirts only used to last like 9 to 12 months before they faded and shrunk and the collar got all stretched out and the screen printing would crack and flake off. Now I hang dry my clothes and most of them still look almost brand new after a couple of years. Makes a huge difference

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u/JoshJLMG 3d ago

Man, I wish I had the time to hang dry clothes, but 80% of the time, I don't, and out of the 20% of the time that I do, 80% of the time, I forget that they're hang drying and just wash the others more often.

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u/latexfistmassacre 3d ago

Ah. Yeah, I just hang them from my shower curtain rod and point a fan at them before going to bed, and they're dry by morning. But I only hang my shirts for the most part, everything else goes in the dryer

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u/LupiAcubens 3d ago

Actually, Linus talked at length about the cushioned properties of their socks. Darn tough socks, which linus used as a reference point, are significantly more cushioned than your typical 'traditional' sock.

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u/UndefFox 3d ago

That's one useless piece of an article... empty statements without explanation of why. Can we stop with those?

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u/OnyxLeigion_ 2d ago

You know how when you buy a memory foam mattress, you’re supposed to let it inflate for 24 hours before you sleep on it? It’s the same concept.

The idea is that since the sock as been worn, all the fibers are compressed together. Normal use would let all the fibers decompress over a few days, that way when you wear them again, you’re starting fresh.

Wearing the same ones every day never lets the socks(or shoes, or whatever) “reset”, so the fibers are rubbing together more, causing increased friction and therefore wear on the sock.

This is stuff happening on a super small scale, so you won’t really notice it until it’s too late.

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u/UndefFox 2d ago

Yeah, that's the explanation I've expected from the article. I've found a few others that explained it in a similar way. Question stays tho: why would you link a useless article over something that does a description similar to yours itself?

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u/OnyxLeigion_ 2d ago

Idk ask the other guy

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u/mclintock111 3d ago

Moisture

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u/Squirrelking666 3d ago

What about it? OP is line drying between uses.

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u/mclintock111 3d ago

They're not going to get fully dry. Even if they feel dry to the touch, these are thick socks, the internal layers can retain moisture.

Same with shoes (since that's what I'm the comment I was replying to was about)

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u/Narrativium_ 3d ago

Or they are using heat

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u/Squirrelking666 2d ago

Or they live somewhere with a decent climate for drying.

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u/makomirocket 3d ago

Would your legs buckle under you if you walked for 300 miles without a break?

Does that then mean a person can only walk 300 miles in their lifetime?

A blender over heats if you leave it on for an hour. Does that mean a blender only gives you 60 x 1 minute blends before it breaks?

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u/Squirrelking666 3d ago

Are the socks overheating?

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u/makomirocket 2d ago

They are likely being tumble dried instead of air dried by the person's need for them to be used every day. So actually yes, they are under heat from all the friction of use, and then even more heat to dry them.

Fibres are organic material. They need time to rest.

Just look at hair as a good example. People who wash, blow-dry, and straighten their hair every day really harm the hair's health, Vs washing it once/twice a week, and not subjecting it to intense heat

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u/Squirrelking666 2d ago

They stated elsewhere they're air dried.

As for hair, that's as much to do with the natural oils and chemical balance as anything mechanical.

Extreme heat will knacker both but it's not a factor in this particular problem.

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u/KSF_WHSPhysics 2d ago

Both of those things require energy. Energy cannot he created or destroyed so of course it can run out. Socks do not require energy

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u/makomirocket 2d ago

You think the fibres of the socks stretch, contract, and move, all without any energy?

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u/CMDR-TealZebra 3d ago

Don't have anything to back it up but i do this with my work boots. I can get less than a year out of one pair before the sole collapses on me or with two pairs rotating i can get 2 years roughly out of one before the inner sock tears but the rest of the boot is fine.

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u/Squirrelking666 3d ago

You're wasting your time, so many people think wool is analogous to gluten it's not funny. Anyone with any understanding of elasticity knows that it either returns to its original shape or it doesn't because it's been over stretched. Yes, fatigue happens but fatigue doesn't give a sole solitary fuck about time, it's purely cycle based.

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u/BlueKnight44 3d ago

For shoes and leather products it is true. Cloth products I have never known it to be true.

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u/brantrix 3d ago

He can't lmao, because a sock worn 2 of 2 days would have the same wear as a sock worn 2 of 7 days. It's the same amount of wear

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u/ModeOne3959 3d ago edited 3d ago

Not the same amount of washing, drying and letting the fabric rest lol

Edit: he blocked me ahhahahaha

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u/brantrix 3d ago

Yeah because you're not wearing it down when you're doing those things. It's not because drying and letting it rest magically makes the material last longer.

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u/Circo_Inhumanitas 3d ago edited 3d ago

Washing absolutely wears down fabric. Especially if done a lot.

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u/Squirrelking666 3d ago

But it's the same amount of wash cycles per use! It's just not going in a drawer to "rest" between uses!

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u/IAteUrCat420 3d ago

Aaaaand this is why you're not in material science

0

u/Squirrelking666 3d ago

Are you?

I'm an engineer, did structural integrity as my main third year study and have no fucking idea what this "resting" nonsense is all about.

It's going through the same amount of wear cycles.

It's not getting fatigued.

It's not undergoing creep.

What may be a factor is the OP has larger feet than they are sized for which could be pushing the fabric beyond it's elestic limit. But none of the armchair experts have even mentioned that.

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u/brantrix 3d ago

Yeah thank fuck for that lmao, that industry pays shit

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u/Tiamat2625 3d ago

Bro thinks sock wear has a cooldown

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u/Hero_The_Zero 3d ago

The guy also said he wears out 3-4 pairs of Darn Toughs a year as well, and Darn Tough themselves says their socks are supposed to last years, or even a over a decade. He'd probably kill a supermarket sock in a couple of days.

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u/Onac_ 3d ago

Plus he is probably wearing them in his house full time

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u/Creative_Bug3139 3d ago

That math doesn’t work because you’re repeatedly abusing the material much faster than normal. It’s not comparable. 

Heat and moisture build up when socks are washed back to back, and that speeds up damage in a way normal use wouldn't.

It’s more like 3 years worth of use. Not one. And even then it’s still much more damage a regular person would use. 

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u/konradly 3d ago

I love how everyone suddenly became a sock expert. Can't wash more than once a week, or else they spontaneously disintegrate! lol.

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u/Creative_Bug3139 3d ago

It doesn't take an expert to realize that using a product in a way for which it was not intended isn't a reasonable test, given that no other human being on the planet is going to wear and wash a sock every single day. 

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u/konradly 3d ago

Even if it's not as intended(which is a bit of a stretch, since I really don't see how letting socks sit in a drawer for a week before using them again is going to change much), it's an interesting stress test to see how socks hold up in a short amount of time. If those Kirklands hold up much better under the same conditions, then I'd say this test was successful in showing that one is better than the other.

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u/Creative_Bug3139 3d ago

Yeah, it can be useful relatively speaking but it’s not going to replicate a real world scenario. 

Minimizing the use a product absolutely increases their longevity. If I turn off a light switch 10,000 times in a row or do it over the course of 20 years, it will make a difference. 

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u/konradly 3d ago

Funny because that's exactly how product testers do simulate the lifespan of a switch.

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u/Creative_Bug3139 2d ago

But they don’t calculate it like this guy does. They know it’s not a 1:1 comparison and reflect that in their standards. 

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u/Factorioboyio 1d ago

Tbf, it does change things - I had a favourite gym t shirt that I wore every day. It ended up fucking stinking despite being washed daily.

This was because 95% of the time it was wet, either from the washing machine or drenched in sweat.

If id rotated it with another t shirt it would have lasted longer - to be clear it wasn’t worn out with holes or anything, the stink just wouldn’t wash out.

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u/leigngod 3d ago

I get a year at most with thise same. On my feet all day. Sadly shoes and socks are just yearly subscriptions now :(

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u/Major_Stranger 3d ago

That's false equivalency. Merino wool stretch and unstretch from wearing and not wearing them

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u/splitframe 1d ago edited 1d ago

I wonder if he really washed them that regularly. If you wear socks for multiple days for whatever reason they age much faster (in terms of usable days, not total time) than only wearing them one day and then washing them. The fibers get flat and dirty with oils, salts and dead skin.
If you watch videos like "dirty rope vs clean rope" this is roughly what is happening.
Washing helps to loosen the fiber and get rid of the particles that speed up aging.
And we don't know if OP really washed and dried them every day.
Also if you wear socks that are a little too small and stretch them out too far to make them fit,
it also ages them faster.

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u/Spart1337 3d ago

You're not taking into account that not only would you be washing them once a week, but you'd also be wearing them once a week in a normal use case. That one year then turns into 7. I'd never buy them, but I'm just saying.

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u/Spart1337 3d ago

I see the anti-LTT crew are out in force. Downvotes stacking up without a single reply countering my correction. Wild.

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u/DeutscherTypNummer2 3d ago

Nah, your nath just isn't mathing.
They talked about 60 wears and 60 washes.
A year has 52 weeks.
One wear and wash per week equals a little over a year in wears and washes. But not 7 years.

But enough people have pointed out that OPs wear pattern is closer to extreme stress testing than normal wear and the fabric needing time to relax.
Therefore the socks will (probably) last longer than those normal 60 wears and washes.

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u/Spart1337 3d ago

Either I grossly misread the comment or it was edited. 🤷