The only thing we sort is sheets, because if you wash sheets with towels and clothes they get all screwy in the dryer. We just put all dirty things directly into the open washing machine, and when it’s full, we run it. Everything is washed on cold, with about half the recommended detergent, and everything goes into the dryer–if it can’t survive the dryer, it’s not a good fit for our household. So far no major catastrophe has befallen us as a result of these terrible laundry practices.
I do sheets separately too because of how everything gets all wound up. I don’t separate anything either in the regular laundry but it’s just t-shirts, 501s, undies and socks. The only thing that’s white are the socks. The socks are still white after dozens of cycles.
I am definitely doing my next wash with no soap.
It is possible to destroy some clothes by accidentally running them through the wrong cycle or temperature. Some colors do bleed (and dye everything else in the load), and I definitely trashed a silk handkerchief that found its way into the wrong basket.
I don’t wash sheets, my gf would never trust me with them (she buys very expensive sheets, because she thinks it is worth it).
If you want to escalate this, try what I do: ( drives her nuts )
Start with a clean towel ( of course )
After drying oneself after showering, hang it ( or drape it over handy objects ) outside to dry.
Re-use towel for next showering. Do this for 4 or 5 times before re-washing it.
No no no she says: You wash it every time you use it. Sure, I’m clean when I dry myself off, but apparently microscopic flakes of dead skin are quite the pandemic from which to infect myself with.
I use half a cup of soap as well and my clothes get clean great. I also don’t sort in the washer. I sort in the dryer, placing the pants and any other heavy clothes in their own partial load, otherwise if I put them in the same dryer with a lot of other clothes, the other clothes will get dry but the pants will still be damp and some of that will rub off on the rest of the clothes.
Outside? My towel goes over the shower enclosure and dries fine. I’ll admit it is occasionally a little whiffy by the end of the week
I recently bought a sweater at a local thrift store. It fit fine when I tried it on at the store. I put it in the washing machine, cold water–and it shrank dramatically. Looking at the label it said “Merino Wool. Dry Clean Only”. Very puzzling.
Yep. Wool doesn’t do good in the washer. You made felt.
Here’s my unsolicited armchair diagnosis: she can’t bring herself to break the “laundry rules” she learned at an early age, no matter how successful your rule-breaking regime works; also, she can’t admit she’s been wrongly driven by rules all these years. So she resents you for being both laid-back about laundry and successful in making your clothes clean.
Is she a stickler for rules in other areas of life? I know the type, my mother was like that. I loved my mother, but she ran her life based on things told her by people long since dead, without much ever questioning what they had said.
Let me guess: she’s female; you are not.
I don’t imagine the wool, silk, etc. care whether the person pushing the “Start” button on the washing machine is male or female. Do men dump their designer suits in with the rest of the wash?
Residual soap is a real thing, though.
ETA men have been known to hold on to a pair of shorts until they are little more than loosely-bound underwear molecules.
When I was first doing laundry with my new wife, similar to you, I was firing clothes in and she got pretty wound up about it:
GF: “What are you doing, don’t you sort your clothes?!?!”
Me: “Yes, of course I do.”
GF: “What are you talking about? They’re all mixed up together!”
Me: “No they’re not, shirts, socks, sheets are all in the same load. Pants, pillowcases go together. Underwear are alone since nothing else starts with ‘U’”
GF: “Oh God, I married a moron!”
That said, I was also like the OP, I never worried about colours, until a few years ago when a red t-shirt of my daughter’s was in my typical mixed colour load. Everything turned awful shades of pink. I ended up tossing out a few expensive dress shirts after that.
Expensive lesson learned. Now I sort by whites, darks and reds and double check loads.
Or boxers with their favorite cartoon character or football team. BTW those are never white unless you like Casper the friendly ghost.
**DIE HERETIC!!! **
Just kidding; I’ve done the same thing myself a time or two. Put me down in the camp as one of those who thinks that if
a) you are not unusually sweaty
b) covered with grime from digging a ditch or rebuilding a 1950 Ford
c) not going to make a habit of it for the next 10 times you wash said clothes
you should be fine and not feel any guilt.
The exception is underwear. There at least soap and as far as I’m concerned bleach as well.
Bingo. My husband does the wash exactly like Kayaker, which is why he was fired from laundry years ago. When the “Care Instructions” on a garment, say ‘wash with like colors’, ‘wash on delicate’, or ‘dryclean only’…you just have to follow those rules.
I agree.
I don’t use fabric softener either.
Also, point out to her that by not washing your clothes with soap, you’re not adding residue to the machine, enabling her clothes to get cleaner.
I know the wash-separating thing has a reputation for being gendered behaviour but personally I’m with kayaker - I’m aware that there are certain clothes that will not cope well with being lumped in with all the other washing and my term for these items is “things that don’t belong in my closet”. I have too many things in my head already to add washing instructions for a couple dozen clothes into the mix. Also, a simple washing scheme is a scheme a child can do. And does!
I did do the ‘wool sweater to felt’ thing by accident one time with one of my jumpers. My daughter wore the results happily for a number of years afterwards. She was about four at the time…
I had a real cool pair of Grateful Dead boxers with ‘Steal Your Face’ on them. Finally had to retire them and ‘send them to a farm in the country’.
Miss those boxers…