About a year ago, I purchased a new Apple Watch band, the single piece Braided Loop in Navy Blue. I absolutely loved it, it was soft, looked great, and most importantly fit perfectly. It was snug but not uncomfortable.
However over the course of the past year it started stretching out more and more until last week it started slipping the watch itself around to the underside of my wrist multiple times per day. I was frustrated because spending $100 on a watch band I was hoping to get more than 12 months out of it. To make matters worse my initial search online saw multiple sites say that there's no fixing it. I swapped my original stained and dirty white sport band back on the watch but wanted to try some kind of solution.
Digging in a bit more to some Reddit posts I found a few suggestions around dunking or soaking it in near-boiling water and then letting it air try for 24 hours. Two or three posts specifically mentioned water around 160° but no hotter, and let it bathe for 30 minutes. I figured the band was already almost unusable so I didn't have anything to lose. I put some water on the stove and heated it up, checking the temp with my kitchen thermometer, and when it was at 160 I poured it over the band in a bowl.
I should have measured or done some more scientific procedures, but surprisingly the band did shrink a bit. It certainly is not as tight as it was when I bought it, but it's not sliding over to the other side of my wrist. I know this won't work as a long term solution, but it is back on my wrist for the time being. I'll see how long it holds, and when it stretches out again (I'm assuming) I'll try actual boiling water next time. Stay tuned...
Update: Yeah, that didn't last long. It was pretty good for about 30 days but not long after that it was loose again. Worth trying I guess...