Whites only - socks and undershirts. Lots of bleach. Hot water, “heavy soil” setting, two rinses. Occasionally I put the bath towels in here too, since they’ve been washed plenty of times so the color is safe with just a bleach rinse.
Dryer is on hot, “Very Dry” setting
Everything else. “Cool Darks” setting, two rinses. Dryer on medium, “Normal Dry”
I do have a few guyabera shirts that need dry cleaning (worn summer only, not often) as well as a few wool car coats, but I only need dry cleaning a few times per year.
Different clothes require different water temperatures and agitation. Some clothes will cause abrasion on other clothes. Example: My husband changed the oil in the car, getting his jeans and Tshirt all greasy. I have a lightweight rayon* blouse. That blouse can’t go in the same load with the jeans, which require hot water and strong detergent. The blouse will get worn out quicker, the water that will get the oil out will cause the blouse to shrink, and the oil might transfer onto the blouse. I’ve had a variety of nice clothes ruined when my husband decided to “help” me by doing the laundry.
Acrylic seems very susceptible to pilling, by the way.
I do separate loads of sheets and towels. I only buy white or light colored sheets and towels, the towels (and washcloths) will abrade the sheets. Jeans and heavy pants, khakis and such, go into another load, and then lightweight stuff. I rarely buy anything that needs special care, such as handwashing or drycleaning.
socks, undies, gym shorts (with Febreeze in my detergent)
shirts (they don’t go in the dryer)
Jeans, sweatshirts and maybe a towel or two
Towels (bath or kitchen) & sheets
I have 3 baskets and a hamper in my laundry room. One basket for jeans, one basket for underwear and other whites, one basket for shirts, dark socks, and all non-jeans colored garments, and the hamper for towels, dishcloths, cleaning rags (except husband’s shop rags - those are gross.) Sheets either end up in the hamper or briefly on the floor before they get washed.
Since my washer offers an extra rinse option, I always use that on towels, to ensure all soap residue is gone. Everything else is washed on the Quick Wash setting, unless I decide to bleach the whites. Everything is washed cold, unless I bleach the whites.
The only things I really worry about mixing in loads are the aforementioned shop rags. If they’re oily or reek of some sort of chemical, I’ll soak them in a bucket of water and detergent before washing them.
Usually I do two or three loads of laundry on a weekend. Sometimes that goes up to four or five if I’ve skipped a week or have a bunch of blankets to wash. Everything is cold water. I’ll just throw knits and delicates in with whichever color seems appropriate and run the whole thing on the delicate cycle.
Dark colors
Medium colors
Light colors
Blankets, sheets and towels
Delicates (if enough to fill half a load)
Depends on how much laundry I have to do. If it’s not a lot, then it’s usually darks (dress shirts, dress slacks), lights (ditto), cottons (t-shirts worn at night, socks), delicates (underwear, any delicate dress shirts), and towels, and most of those are half-loads or less.
If I waited and have a lot of laundry to do, then usually the dark load gets split into 2 or more, usually by color (blues vs reds), the light load may as well, and the towels have a bathroom load vs a kitchen load, then add a sheets load too.
Yeah, every couple of months I take the hamper full of shop-rags/dog towels/horse blankets to a laundromat. I feel kinda bad doing it, but typically about half the people there are laundering disgusting stuff and the other half are laundering their clothes.
Mine (one load a week)
His (he goes through more laundry than I do and does more loads per week - once in a while some of my stuff goes in his load if he’s almost filled a load but not quite)
In the past, I’ve separated further to keep things from blue jeans abrading bath towels and so on but my current apartment is coin laundry and I just don’t keep enough change on me to be able to do 4 different loads every week. There are two things I want in wherever I live next and that’s at least twice the amount of kitchen counter space I have now and my own washer and dryer.