I usually make 3 piles of laundry to wash according to color and not fabric: black clothes go in one pile, every other clothe I own goes into a second pile (colors white to navy blue). The third pile is for my bed linens and towels, (100% cotton, so I can wash them to 140°F)
Now, I don’t know if I should make more piles instead, because my bed linens and clothes sometimes combine several colors and I don’t know if they bleed and I’m slowly degrading them:
I was thinking of making a pile for black clothes, one for white clothes, one for every other color clothe I own (I have purple, yellow and green stuff plus denims), one for my bed linens (all of them are mixed colors, including dark and clear colors like red, orange, green and black in one piece) and another pile for my towels (one color only, but different ones, including green, purple, white, yellow and navy blue).
Regarding fabrics, I have 100% cotton, 100% merino wool, 100% polyester and mixed fabrics, so the number of piles can grow considerably.
I live alone, so sometimes I can need a lot of time to get a laundry worth pile of stuff to wash if I create as many piles as I suggested here.
I may be overthinking it but I’d like to do the laundry the right way and keep the stuff I already have in good condition. How do you do it?
Basically this
Sort by fabric weight and “toughness” not the other ideas.
You want jeans with towels and rags and socks and goonch together. Thinner shirts and blouses with thinner slacks together. Heavy jumpers and aprons and work pantaloons. Always cold water, lay flat dry unless you find that too annoying and time consuming (I personally prefer air dry but it’s probably me being a bit fussy and too frugal buy hey free winter home humidity too)
edit: Oh and you must inside-out the good items. So the nice exterior doesn’t get beaten to rat-shit and all pilled up. Let that rubbing-rubbing-rubbing damage to the fibers happen on the interior of the garment which nobody sees
Everything together in cold water
Same.
Slap them all in the washer together and enjoy any new coloured clothes I have.
You’re completely overthinking it. I keep white separate. Colors get their own basket. Denim goes in a separate piles after it really smells (it honestly shouldn’t be washed very much). Towels get their own load due to shedding. Sheets sometimes go in with the colors.
I do everything on cold. I use the plainest of plain detergent. If there’s a smell in polyester or nylon clothes I’ll put in some Clorox 2.
Dryer on low or medium until mostly dry. I’ve got a fancy one with a moisture sensor that actually works so I let that determine how long. Usually 25-30 minutes.
Citation: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/wirecutter-show-podcast-20240821-better-laundry-secret/
Most damage comes from heat, and rough handling, so I sort by structure/weight, and wash almost everything on cold, and tumble dry on low, auto-sense.
The only color I wash separate is white so it can run hot and with bleach.
I also presort, by weight into 4 bins heavyweight, middleweight, lightweight/dress-shirts, and finally undergarments/delicates/socks
We might go a 2-3 weeks between a running a particular bin so we can separate things out just because there is enough to fill out it’s own load.
Undergarments and deli sites go together, might add leggings or lightweight tops to fill out a load
Socks are separate merely because we like fluffy wool socks and they will fill their own load, and it’s easier to pair them when they all come out together. Otherwise they’d be with undergarments. Might run on warm if the foot stank is real bad.
Sturdy fabrics like denim and duck all go together in a denim cycle it’s just cold/cold with a heavy spin
Sweats and other heavy bulkys go together so they don’t twist up lighter clothes. Might run these with denim or towels
Lightweight tops and button down shirts go together. Lightweight sweaters might be get mixed in too.
Then general laundry is middleweight fabrics: t-shirts, slacks leggings, etc.
If there’s enough for their own load, towels get a hot cycle to get cut down on microbial growth. Otherwise they go with denim and/or sweats. NEVER USE FABRIC SOFTENER/DRYER SHEETS ON TOWELS. It makes things softer by adding oils THAT prevent them from absorbing water, which is the whole point of towels.
Sheets and pillowcases might get a warm cycle and pre wash to help cut through accumulated body grease, etc.
Undergarments and deli sites go together
Now I’m not allowed back in Subway.
Low heat alone will help a ton like you said, high heat seems to ruin everything and it’s just not needed unless unless it’s towels maybe.
I knew that fabric softener would stop towel absorption but I never thought about dryer sheets too. I thought those were just antistatic.
Also the “deli sites” typo made me laugh.
I don’t separate colours, only new clothes I put in with towels, sheets or clothes that I wouldn’t care if colour bled.
I never wash with hot water, only warm or cold. Low heat dry and cold water washing is really the best effort-for-performance to get your clothes to last, you can hang dry some of them but I personally can’t be arsed.
Easy. I only have black clothes. If there’s bleeding, I can’t see it.
I have hot wash for towels and bed stuff. Cold for literally everything else. I’ve never had anything bleed, even new stuff.
I try to wash whites alone, but that’s it, and even then I’m not super strict about it. It helps though that probably 90% of my clothes were thrifted, bleeding is mostly a problem with brand-new fabrics
We don’t, we separate into bulky clothes (sweats, jeans, heavy shirts), everything else, and delicates. We wash with only cold water (modern machines and detergents don’t need hot water and it won’t get things any more clean, it just wastes energy). Bulky goes in first, then normal, then delicates. I’ve done this for at least 10 years with zero issues across a variety of machines and water hardnesses.
Same here. And I only separate by weight to help my dryer out. Now my normal clothes are done a half hour sooner and my jeans don’t come out damp.
I separate by the kind of detergent and cycle a thing is run on.
Gym/sleep t-shirts, denim, towels all get a hot wash with oxi-clean and fabric softener because I love the smell come at me bro.
Elastics - things that are mostly elastic/spandex/polyester - socks, underwear, leggings, sports bras. They get a hot/cold wash with a pre soak and extra rinse. The they get the free and clear detergent that washes cleanest and leaves no smell.
Daily wear/delicates - gentle cold wash with woolite with low tumble dry or hang dry. I only ever have like 4 of these with each wash. Generally the nice, more expensive stuff I wear in public that I want to last a long time.
I don’t care what color anything is.
I put whites into one pile, which allows me to use bleach if I want. The rest I split into “rough” or “heavy” fabrics (think jeans) and more “gentle” fabrics (think slacks). I’m not worried about the colors so much as wear on the clothes that can’t take a beating by getting mixed.
We do: my wife’s stuff and our t-shirts with pictures for delicates wash and literally everything else goes in on a standard wash cycle.
I keep and wash my whites separate in hot or warm water. Everything else goes together in cold water. Wool stuff gets air dried, while the rest gets the dryer.
Add a cup of white vinegar to the wash with the clothes if anything is extra smelly, during the wash cycle/beginning.
