Thank you for the kind words J2F. I enjoy your posts as well.
But as you probably know, I am also a guy who cleans his chains and puts saws in cases lined with oil absorbent pads (it's all documented here somewhere on A.S.).
And if I was the only guy to wash chaps, they wouldn't put the information on those tags, or on their websites:
(Also, see attached from USFS).
I guess that the bottom line is I'm not gonna kick you out of the forest because your chaps are stained - I'm happy to just see you wear them. But if a guy is gonna wash them occasionally, he should read the directions.
Throwing them in a top loader washer with bleach and your spouse's undergarments is NOT the way to do it!
Philbert