You Don’t Need to Freeze Your Pantyhose

Saving a few bucks isn’t worth wetting down your tights, freezing them, and then thawing them out before work.

A Billfolder tipped me off to a TurboTax infographic that suggests the first step to financial stability should be taken in ice-cold pantyhose:

I don’t think all of these tips are bad. You probably can save money with a double wedding! But some of these tips are, at best, misguided; short hair might save you a few seconds in the shower but it’ll cost a lot more in regular cuts and upkeep, and I spend more on styling products for short hair than I ever did for long hair—plus, I still wear plenty of hair accessories. Sparkly bobby pins are about the only way I can dress up my pixie cut, so I own plenty.

Also, we ran a feature about the cost of toilet-training your cat:

The Cost of Toilet Training Cats

• CitiKitty Cat Toilet Training Kit: $30
• Cat’s Pride Flushable litter (3): $30
• Friskie’s “Party Mix” Cat treats: $1.65
• Vet visit: $45
• Stool Lab Tests: $67

TurboTax prices the annual cost of cat litter at $165/year and the cost of toilet-training a cat at $30. The couple who shared their toilet-training story with us spent $173.65 on training and weren’t able to fully toilet-train their cats, though as of that 2013 article they were still working on it.

But let’s go back to that “freeze your pantyhose and/or tights” thing, because it is in fact a thing:

• 7 secrets to make tights last longer than you thought possible
• People Swear Freezing Your Tights Before You Wear Them Stops Runs
• How Freezing Your Tights Will Change Your Whole Damn Life

Good Housekeeping actually tested the frozen-tights method, and came up with this dispiriting finding:

“There was no significant difference in our fabric strength results between the two tights,” [Textiles Product Analyst Lexie Sachs] says. She adds that, while the durability of a fiber could be affected by temperature and humidity, it would likely only happen when the tights were currently wet and cold. “So by the time you pop them out the freezer, thaw them and pull them on, they will acclimate to a normal temperature,” she says. “I just don’t think there would be a noticeable difference.”

I wonder if the amount of water you save when you have short hair is negated by the amount of water you use to wet down your tights before you put them in the freezer.

You don’t need me to re-clarify that daily lattes and non-frozen pantyhose aren’t what’s keeping us from financial stability—first because we say it all the time at The Billfold (“it’s the big expenses like rent/healthcare/childcare that are too high, not the small ones!”) and second because I get pitches from people who are trying to figure out how to save a few extra dollars every month, so I know it’s a legitimate concern.

But there have to be better ways of saving money than thawing your tights out every morning. How would you even do it? The hairdryer? The oven? All of that stuff uses electricity.

If you have frozen your tights, I am very interested to know how that method worked for you. Otherwise, I’m sure we can use the comment section to grumble about financial tips and/or the low tensile strength of cheap pantyhose.

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