# Is it Necessary to Sort Laundry these Days?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [January 27, 2022, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525 "2022-01-27T20:17:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats2)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2022, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525/1 "2022-01-27T20:17:35Z")
I’m asking because I already didn’t bother sorting before washing, and everything seemed fine. Whites still white, colors as bright as ever. To hear some, you’d think washing unsorted clothes was tantamount to summoning Cthulu from the dryer.
Should I still bother sorting? Or is not sorting next to ungodliness?
(I don’t know why I should care about ungodliness. I’m an atheist now.)
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### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2022, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525/2 "2022-01-27T20:24:48Z")
Oddly, this just came up today. The answer is not really as today’s clothes are more colorfast.
Additionally, we only wash in cold water now and it was hot water that tended to wash out the dyes and cause the “All my undershirts are pink now” issues.
So we don’t separate colors from whites. We do use _Cold Water Tide_ to help a bit. But from what I read, that is probably not needed either.
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### Author:  [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2022, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525/3 "2022-01-27T20:26:41Z")
I stopped sorting laundry when they first rolled out mask mandates and I didn’t have enough masks to wait for a full load of like colors. I haven’t started again. I have in the past had bright new clothes bleed the first time I washed them, and when I had to wear a white shirt to work every day I found the whites did stay brighter over time if I washed them separately. But overall, I think it’s mostly fine not to sort, especially if you wash in cold water.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2022, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525/4 "2022-01-27T20:27:18Z")
I don’t sort whites vs colours, and have never had a problem. I do separate items that are done at different temperatures. I tend to do most clothing on “warm”, sheets and towels on “hot”.
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### Author:  [@WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUBv.2)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2022, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525/5 "2022-01-27T20:36:10Z")
I don’t sort by color but by material. So, pretty much everything but jeans or other heavy materials go in their own batch. Towels and linens also get their own separate loads.
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### Author:  [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2022, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525/6 "2022-01-27T20:48:34Z")
I agree with this method. Red things, especially when new, may be treated more carefully as well.
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### Author:  [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2022, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525/7 "2022-01-27T20:59:53Z")
I use a detergent supposedly better for keeping darks dark. I don’t know whether it does anything but I do keep two hampers. However, since there is a lot more non-dark stuff, I frequently even the washer load levels by transferring lights into the other hamper.
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### Author:  [@Didi44](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Didi44)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2022, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525/8 "2022-01-27T21:02:07Z")
Colorfastness varies as many products are made overseas, sometimes as cheap as possible.
I live by myself and sometimes go weeks before I do my wash, so always use hot water to wash. I have some black towels from Target and Walmart that have turned everything white, thankfully only t-shirts and underwear, a dingy gray.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2022, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525/9 "2022-01-27T21:03:10Z")
Yep.
And we wash in “tap cold” to save energy.
So yeah, first time wash with new red items- wash with black or reds only. Wash in cold as much as you can.
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### Author:  [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2022, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525/10 "2022-01-27T21:06:39Z")
I do:
Delicates (cold)
Whites (hit water and bleach)
Everything else
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### Author:  [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2022, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525/11 "2022-01-27T21:21:31Z")
I solved this dilemma for myself years ago: I stopped buying white clothes. My athletic socks are black, my undies are dark, etc. Living alone, I never had enough whites to justify doing a separate load, and unlike others here, I DID find my whites got dingy when I washed them with colors, though perhaps the water (hard as rocks) was to blame.
Buying dark socks was one of the two smartest laundry moves I’ve made. The other was the old trick of throwing in a dry bath towel when starting a load in the dryer. It really does cut down on drying time, provided you remove it after 15 minutes.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2022, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525/12 "2022-01-27T22:00:12Z")
The only time I sort by color is when I have something new that might be likely to run.
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### Author:  [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2022, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525/13 "2022-01-27T22:02:56Z")
Sorting laundry is one of those things that isn’t necessary…until it is. Then you really, really wish you’d done it.
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### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2022, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525/14 "2022-01-27T22:06:14Z")
We only stopped sorting since we had the house on the market early 2020. So far no problems. But again we only wash in cold water. The little I read says it is mostly hot water that causes the issues these days.
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### Author:  [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2022, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525/15 "2022-01-27T22:07:18Z")
No
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2022, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525/16 "2022-01-27T22:09:31Z")
I have a couple of old fashioned cotton sweatshirts, and even though they’ve been washed a million times, they can still fade, especially on to white cotton clothes. I also find new blue jeans can fade for a couple of times (I prefer the dark indigo styles.)
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### Author:  [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2022, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525/17 "2022-01-27T22:11:04Z")
> [@nelliebly](#):
>
> Buying dark socks was one of the two smartest laundry moves I’ve made.
I have colored underwear but, preferring cotton, I just can’t bring myself to buy dark socks. It’s an irrational fear of the dye coming off on my sweaty feet and poisoning me like [green wallpaper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheele%27s_Green#Toxicity).
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### Author:  [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2022, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525/18 "2022-01-27T22:21:10Z")
try these they work wonders
> **[Shout® Color Catcher - Protect from Color Bleeding | Shout®](https://www.shoutitout.com/en-us/products/color-catcher-dye-trapping-sheet)**
>
> Washing mixed colors and whites is easy with Shout® Color Catcher. Sheets absorb and protect clothes against color bleeding and help preserve original colors.
just make sure you put them in with the clothes and not after the washer fills …
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### Author:  [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2022, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525/19 "2022-01-27T22:50:02Z")
> [@Didi44](#):
>
> I live by myself and sometimes go weeks before I do my wash, so always use hot water to wash. I have some black towels from Target and Walmart that have turned everything white, thankfully only t-shirts and underwear, a dingy gray.
I had to read this twice. I couldn’t understand at first how something black could turn everything white.
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### Author:  [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2022, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-necessary-to-sort-laundry-these-days/958525/20 "2022-01-27T23:30:26Z")
I live alone so I don’t have a whole lotta laundry to sort. Whites and lights go in one load, darks in the other. Items that are new and loaded with dye, get their first wash alone. Other items that are called out for hand washing go into a “tap cold” wash with either a cool dryer or are hung up or laid out to dry. This is primarily for things like swimsuits, leggings and any other thing that might be loaded up with elastic/spandex.
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