New Year’s Day is a time for reflection, goal setting, and spending time with loved ones. It’s also a time when various superstitions come into play, dictating what you should or shouldn’t do to ensure good luck for the upcoming year. One such superstition revolves around washing clothes on New Year’s Day. According to folklore and traditions, washing clothes on this specific day can either bring good fortune or bring bad luck. In this article, we will explore seven superstitions related to washing clothes on New Year’s Day and shed light on the possible origins and beliefs behind them.
1. The Belief in Washing Away Good Luck
Another New Year’s Day superstition is that washing clothes is a practice that will wash away the good luck from your life.
The idea is that good luck is in abundance at the start of the year. However, if you perform certain activities, you clean up or wash away the good energy.
Thus, washing your clothes on New Year’s Day will make that luck harder to come by. Even worse, it could signal to the universe that you are not grateful for the blessings that have already been given.
Apparently, this originates from Jewish tradition. Observant Jewish people follow Shabbat (Sabbath) and some of these rules carry through into daily life.
One thing many Jewish people do not do on Shabbat is laundry. According to tradition, doing laundry (and ironing) on Sundays will wash away all of the good luck that has been accumulated over the previous week.
Sunday is generally seen as the start of the week in much of the world. The idea is, since Sunday is also laundry day, it’s better to wait and do it on the next day to preserve good luck.
Thus, taking this Jewish superstition and applying it to New Year’s Day leads to a whole new set of rules and traditions.
This old urban legend might have some legs, considering many people in the United States still do not have to work on New Year’s Day. So maybe they’re all just preserving their own good luck by taking a day off from doing laundry!
2. The Tradition of Starting the Year Fresh
Paying off debts should have early risers doing laundry at midnight, as the tradition of starting off the year with clean slate has been a long-standing superstition. And what’s cleaner than crisp white clothes?
Once upon a time the idea of having fresh white garments was rare. If you had a garment that was already white, that was pretty much as good as it gets. If your shirt was covered in dirt, then congrats, you now have a brown shirt. But cleaning clothes and more importantly bleaching them back to white wasn’t exactly easy. Bleach wasn’t available in nearby stores and boiling your clothes wasn’t really an option in the dead of winter.
So you were better off starting off the year with clean and bright clothes. This way if you did have to make a rare appearance in public on New Year’s Day then you’d at least look presentable.
While our modern day washing machines have likely created more superstitions than they’ve gotten rid of but the tradition of freeing yourself from any stress at the end of the year seemed to have remained intact. No debt collectors were coming to collect on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day so taking those two days to cleanse seemed like perfect timing. The superstition that bad things happen in threes also meant that people preferred to do their laundry on January 1st because you don’t want to end up spending the rest of the first month on three failed laundry attempts.
But even if our forefathers were just superstitious, we can still appreciate the appeal of washing off 2021’s dirt and starting the new year with a fresh slate.
3. The Myth of Washing Away a Loved One’s Good Fortune
The Chinese, Vietnamese and Taiwanese believe that the first three days of the Lunar New Year are meant to be spent with your family. It’s a time to honor deities and ancestors, and there is a strict hierarchy for how to handle all things related to the new year.
Due to this belief in strict hierarchy, you cannot ask anyone younger than you to clean their house. If you do, they have the power to refuse and tell you that if your house is dirty, they are under no obligation to help you.
Even as a married woman, my mom always felt obligated to go home and spend time with her family on the first day of the new year. Since she was the oldest sister, there was a lot of pressure and responsibility on her to make sure her younger siblings were well off.
The worst fear during Chinese New Year is being told by a younger sibling or junior that they no longer have any responsibility towards you. The moment you’ve been waiting for finally arrives… your parents tell you that you have no more responsibilities towards them.
Since it is believed that no one can help you if your house is dirty, washing clothes on New Year’s Day is strictly forbidden. You wouldn’t want someone to wash away all your good fortune before the new year even begins!
If anyone has the audacity to clean on New Year’s Day without permission from their elders, people will curse them with phrases like: “May their hands collapse and be unable to hold a pen!” or “May their feet blister so they cannot walk or run!”
When I was growing up, my mom would always try to wake me up early and tell me that we HAD to start cleaning because the new year wasn’t only about eating all day long. She would not-so-secretly hope that I wouldn’t know any better and help her clean my room.
Many times, I would wake up late before my parents and watch TV on New Year’s Day. My dad would often scold me for not helping my mom clean but then whisper in my ear not to do anything because my mom would be too tired if she cleaned everything herself.
4. The Symbolism of Dirty Laundry
Whether their origins were influenced by practicality or spirituality, New Year’s Day superstitions have deep roots—no pun intended. When it comes to washing clothes, the idea of not doing it on the first day of the year isn’t so much rooted in luck as it is in symbolism. The idea is to not “wash away” any good fortune or blessings that your family could receive in the coming year.
Dr. Kimberly Miller-Spillman, university assistant professor of retailing and tourism management at the University of Kentucky, likely has a laundry list of qualifications after her name, but she’s also shed some light on the psychological symbolism behind New Year’s washing superstitions.
Miller-Spillman says spring and New Year’s cleaning have historically had symbolic significance for many cultures because the time of renewal is when Mother Earth comes into her own newness. People wanted to capture that feeling in their own lives, often performing ritual cleaning or washing to achieve that sensation within themselves.
“You can’t get that sense of renewal from clean linens or an empty sink,” says Miller-Spillman. “But you can use those clean things as a tangible representation of what you’re attempting to accomplish for yourself.”
In other words, it was a psychological game. By engaging in something physical (like cleaning or washing) people were able to achieve a mental and emotional resolution they wouldn’t have otherwise been able to access.
This same rationale of washing as renewal still holds true for people today. To this day, Miller-Spillman enjoys a good spring cleaning or re-organizing her laundry room as a way to “hit refresh” and create a clean slate for herself in the new year.
“It feels like I’m doing something good for myself,” she says. “Plus I love Toppy Toddler because my kids can help with the laundry without being afraid of chemicals, and that’s another way I can feel good about my choices.”
Whether you believe it to be rooted in faith or just want to take advantage of a spiritual refresh, there are always ways to tackle superstitions from a more pragmatic perspective.
5. The Notion of Delayed Prosperity
Some people believe that not doing laundry on New Year’s Day can bring them luck in the form of cash. They think that the more you hold off on washing your clothes, the better financial situation you’ll be in during the year.
There are a few explanations for this superstition.
The first one is from ancient England. Back then, people believed that our ancestors only covered themselves in animal skins rather than wear full-fledged clothing. It was thought that if they did so, bad luck would come their way. This made cleaning and washing clothes rather difficult—cleaning a single fabric can take one about 30 minutes, after all.
To save time and effort, laundry was often put off until the next year. This way, coins and notes found in pockets could be saved up together for a larger sum of money by winter. The idea is to keep them in your pocket (and don’t wash them), but if you want to break the tradition and keep your coins clean, try using OxiClean™ Washing Machine Cleaner to remove gunky residues and odors from your machine for cleaner* laundry.
Some people also believe in this superstition as a nod to nature’s conditions during winter. The cold weather makes it harder to dry clothes outdoors—without proper drying capabilities, fabric runs the risk of molding or mildewing. As such, it’s better to simply wait until springtime comes along and weather improves before doing laundry.
Washing your essential clothing articles like your everyday work clothes or school uniform doesn’t have to be expensive if you’re worried about your finances while waiting for fortune to come your way. You can always cut costs by looking into alternative laundry solutions. Using products like OxiClean™ High Def Laundry Detergent can help lift away grime and stains from fabric surfaces, ensuring a deep clean without breaking your bank.
While skipping on doing laundry on New Year’s Day doesn’t guarantee wealth or fortune, some people still choose to believe in this superstition as a fun way to ring in the new year with good vibes and traditions.
6. The Fear of Losing Money
On top of the fear of a death in the family, one of the superstitions is about losing money. We are not sure how or why, but according to McNeil, some people are afraid they will lose cash. “That superstition is interesting. I don’t know where that comes from, but they were talking about it on TV,” she said.
Perhaps this superstition comes from the idea of washing money (like how the washing machine was said to be originally created). Some might just be worried they would lose money on that day because they are doing one of two things: spending money or gambling. Yes, gambling may sound strange, but it’s actually a tradition to play poker on New Year’s Day. Playing poker is a popular activity throughout the year, but on this day, it could be considered lucky.
“Playing poker is another one because when you play poker on New Year’s Day you are going to have a lot of hands and a lot of money. So it calls for good financial luck throughout the year if you play poker on New Year’s Day,” McNeil said.
We don’t believe in these superstitions ourselves, but we are all for some good luck that will help us win $1 million. If you want to go all-out and play some poker for good financial luck, why not play the biggest poker game ever? All you need to do is grab a bag of our Classic Potato Chips and you can enter for your chance to win $1 million!
10 Lucky New Year’s Foods
The new year means a fresh start and new beginnings! While everyone has their unique way of celebrating the new year, eating certain lucky foods that symbolize prosperity and abundance is a common tradition in many cultures. If you want to start off the new year with good fortune on your side, we’ve rounded up 10 lucky New Year’s foods to have during your festivities.
1. Black-Eyed Peas
Many Southerners eat black-eyed peas as their first meal on New Year’s Day because they’re thought to bring good luck and prosperity. Some attribute this tradition to Civil War survival stories where people had nothing left to eat except for black-eyed peas.
2. Greens
Eating leafy greens during New Year’s is said to bring wealth since their green color symbolizes money. Collard greens and cabbage are popular choices, but any leafy green will do!
3. Cornbread
Cornbread represents gold, making it the perfect complement to your black-eyed peas and greens on New Year’s Day.
4. Pork
Pork is associated with progress because pigs root forward when they eat (unlike chickens, which scratch backwards). Eating pork on New Year’s Day is believed to symbolize moving forward into a prosperous new year.
5. Lentils
7. The Idea of a Day for Rest and Relaxation
Let’s be real—after the craziness of the holidays, who wants to jump into their usual load of laundry on New Year’s Day? No one!
January 1 is a day of rest and relaxation after all the holiday festivities. Even if you’re not celebrating the New Year, it’s a great time to get things done before you go back to work or school.
Originally, I was going to call out the superstition that people aren’t supposed to do work or chores on New Year’s Day. However, I feel like this is a misleading generalization. We don’t have evidence that says you can’t physically do your laundry that day because it will bring you bad luck.
Superstitions are generalizations about certain things. For example, breaking a mirror means seven years of bad luck but breaking a mirror is an accident (unless you’re in a horror film). The superstitions that we’ve broken down are simply generalizations.
Instead, New Year’s Day being a day for rest and relaxation is more about how you should spend your time. It’s about spending time with loved ones or doing the things you enjoy; similar to how you would spend your weekend.
So of course you can do your laundry if that makes you happy and isn’t stressful. But take things slow and plan your day around hanging out with your best friends or loved ones while keeping these superstitions in mind!
If you want to help take on the superstition load for your friends and family on New Year’s Day, consider sharing this with them. Let them know that Tide can do the heavy duty cleanings for them!
However, I think it would be best if you also took things slow on New Year’s Day 😱 You don’t want to spend all day doing laundry!
While there are mixed beliefs and superstitions surrounding washing clothes on New Year’s Day, it ultimately comes down to personal beliefs and cultural traditions. Whether you choose to wash your clothes on this day or not, the most important thing is to spend time with loved ones and set positive intentions for the year ahead. So, embrace the superstitions or dismiss them entirely – the choice is yours!
