I have a general question and I hope somebody can help.It’ll help solve a debate between the wife and I.
Here goes,In this day and age do you really need to seperate your cloths according to colors before putting them in the washing machine? I’m talking about everyday cleaning not the first time you clean them.Using cold water and regular laundry soap, no bleach etc…
I say it doesn’t really matter it won’t have any noticeable effect,the wife insist that it makes a difference, :smack: thanks in advance
Well, if you want stanky whites, then don’t separate them. Whites (undergarments) should be disenfected with chlorine bleach and/or hot water (enter those who say that a regular wash is disenfectant enough).
Generally, I have never had an issue mixing in all sorts of colors. I only keep whites to their own load (even makes drying and sorting easier). Plus, whacking with the right am’t of bleach = bright whites and insurance they are disinfected.
I also use cold (soft) water, no bleach, and Liquid Tide with Liquid Downy. You definitely have to separate the reds; they’re the worst faders. As for the rest, it depends on how long the clothes sit together in the washer. If you put in a load and go out to the movies, some may bleed into each other. I have a gray t-shirt with black spots from a nearby black garment. If you promptly put the clothes in the dryer, there’s usually no problem, except for the reds.
When it became fashionable in the 70’s to wear pink men’s dress shirts, it probably resulted from a college student putting his red socks in with the whites. 
As Philster said, whites do need to be disinfected. All the clothes you wear become infected with coliform bacteria and possibly all sorts of other pathogens, but especially underwear. Regular laundry soap does not disinfect. As for other colors, I wash my darks together because I think that makes them stay dark longer. I wash my red clothes together so they don’t bleed on other colors. I wash my towels together, using hot water and bleach alternative, because they too are covered with coliform and who-knows-what.
And I like to wash the whites last to minimize the spreading of contaminants to the other loads from the inside of the washer.
I’m not really that much of a germophobe, though it may seem like it. I just work in a dermatologist’s office, and have learned that there’s some nasty stuff on your skin and I like to minimize my chances of skin infection.
Who has earth has only white underwear? I have 3 pair of white underwear, and my SO has maybe 5.
Well, most of my underwear are white. But that’s because I wear white pants for work.
Detergent doesn’t disinfect, but neither does hand soap; it just washes everything away. I have always washed everything together. Does anyone have any cites for the idea that contamination is an issue?
How exactly am I supposed to disinfect my boxer shorts when they’re not white? And why do I need to disinfect my clothes when, the moment I wipe my body down after taking a shower, the towel is covered in bacteria and will be until I bleach it? What’s the danger from the bacteria?
I’ve pre-acknowledged that I am talking about undergarments (beyond ‘whites’).
I’ve pre-acknowledged that some will enter the thread to say that a regular wash is enough, or might be.
Yet, people still want to point this out. The whole point of acknowleding these things is so someone doesn’t point them out to me. I know they are open to debate: What is an undergarment, and does it need bleach?
To answer the OP: no, after the first couple of washings, if you are washing in cold water you don’t need to separate. However…
a white-only load can get hit with a bunch of bleach to get those whites really white. Bit if you are like me, and most of your t-shirts are athletic gray, then it really doesn’t matter.
My house is under contruction and the washer and dryer are out of service. I have to go to the laundromat once a week now. I want to spend as little time as possible in there because laundromats are directly connected to the gates of hell. My wife always says “Here is the wash. Make sure you seperate everything”. “Sure thing champ” I say and promptly block that from my mind. I have never had a problem with mixing myself although I have seen it happen with other people’s stuff. I don’t mix new clothes with old though.
Well, I don’t ONLY have white underwear…but it is what I wear daily for work, etc. My other colors are for, um, special occasions.
I thought I had real a column by Cecil about the subject of disinfecting clothes. But now I can’t find it, so maybe I was mistaken.
My post earlier is just saying how I personally do laundry. I like to disinfect. That’s mostly because of my experiences at work, and because my skin is very sensitive and very dry, and therefore more susceptible to infection. I’m sure the chances of contracting an infection from clothes that are washed only with laundry soap are very low, and I’m not suggesting everyone go to the lengths that I do. But it does make me feel better- it puts my mind at ease, so I do it. YMMV.
Whites washed with darks do get a graying tinge on them, even after just one wash. It is maybe not something you’d notice unless you put that white shirt and a white shirt that hadn’t been washed with darks right next to each other to compare.
And I have only white underwear. I’m prone to yeast infections, and the bleaching part of washing is a key factor in keeping it all under control. For towels, too. Most people don’t have this problem though.
I do four loads of wash–sheets (hot water), towels and undies (hot water and bleach), whites and pastels (warm water), darks and brights (cold water).
Yes, I always separate dark colors from light colors from all-white things. My husband didn’t believe this was necessary until the day he RUINED my tablecloth that used to be white and is now splotchy and will never be usable again by putting it in with other stuff.
Most of the time it probably won’t matter. Most of the time. But that one time that it does, you can bet your bottom dollar that the thing that gets “bled” on by a dark item WILL be something you liked.
[On a personal note, I think it was intentional on his part to get out of doing laundry. Like the time he put my flannel shirts in the dryer on high heat for an hour and shrank them all.]
Hot water will almost instantly cause the bleach to break down. How do I know? When i sanitize bottles for homebrew, I soak them in a mixture of bleach and COLD water, then rinse with HOT to get rid of the bleach.
Bleaching with hot water seems counterproductive to me.