I’m doing laundry this morning and I made an observation about sorting it out for the washer.
I’ve always done the basic thing of sorting bright colors for one load, plain colors for another load, whites for another, etc.
But I observed this morning that I tend to break it down in to smaller subsets than even those.
For instance, I wash all denim together - shirts, jeans, shorts, etc.
I’ll put all the “fuzzy” stuff in loads by color - by “fuzzy” stuff, I mean that one load may contain towels, boot socks, sweatshirt, flannel, etc. Light towels with light socks, dark towels with dark socks and so forth.
I wash everything black (non-fuzzy) together.
White stuff is broken down in to under and outer wear - like I’ll never wash white dress shirts in the same load as T-Shirts and briefs.
Laundry is my ONE anal area of housekeeping! I hang dry most of my stuff: 1. prevent fading and shrinking.
2. To piss off Questar gas who has jacked up my rates so far I cant afford to run my dryer.
Anyway… so I sort for hangups ( ) and non-hangups.
Then by colors: reds, whites, blues and greens, yellows. Sometimes I do mix like yellow t-shirts and gray t-shirts.
Underwear and socks is one load, so they can be bleached. Colored undies get washed with denims.
Towels make a seperate load. I have a 6 yr old… I ALWAYS have dirty towels on the bathroom floor.
All the blacks get washed together (oops! better remember that load today!)
Both the hubby and I work for an internationally known pizza chain so there are uniforms to be washed every few days.
I live in an apartment, so i have to pay $1.25 each for washing and drying. I bought a big laundry rack, and hang most stuff to dry (except towels and jeans). I sort into just two piles, light and dark. Since I mostly wear black, I have to scramble to make enough to actually DO a white load occasionally.
I’ll do reds and pinks together. I’ll do blues together if I have enough blues to make up a load. If not, I’ll do blues in with blacks and greys. Neutral colours like beige, grey, cream and khaki tend to get washed together. I never use fabric conditioner on towels, so the conditioner-or-not status of the laundry is a factor.
Oh, and of course, never wash the blacks in the load immediately following the bleached whites - there’s enough bleach residue around the machine to cause problems.
A fact that I’ve forgotten on a number of occasions and ruined some of my nicest black clothes
dark, light, underwear. underwear then gets broken into white, non white. no dryer, so dark and light get broken into hang on hanger, hang on line, lint producing and non-lint producing. bed linens and towels are separated from everything else.
i have a cool sorting hamper that has three sections.
Mine’s easy. I dump everything on the laundry room floor then set the washer to hot/cold and add a scoop of grated soap. As the washer fills I toss in any whites, underwear, sheets or anything else that should be washed at a higher temp. Then I close the lid and switch the temp to warm for the rest of the time it takes to fill up. (For some reason I think this saves a bit of dough, but probably not.) Next load gets all the darkest and heaviest stuff on cold/cold. (I don’t use bleach, so no problem there.) The last load gets whatever is left on cold/cold (usually colors/mixed stuff.) Unless I’m just getting back from vacation or something I can usually fit all our laundry into 3 loads.
BTW, if you don’t use commercial laundry detergent and softener, you probably won’t need to use bleach. It’s the buildup that makes clothes look dingy.
I wash just about everything in cold water and I use a liquid laundry detergent.
Towels are always first - no color sorting involved - none of them bleed anyway.
Sheets next, if there are any.
Jeans are next.
On the rare occasion I have enough “nice” clothes, I’ll do a permanent press load next. Otherwise, I’ll make a load or two of colored clothes - I do try to keep light colors from dark, and I’m always careful with reds.
All undergarments and socks are last - I’ll bleach occasionally, not every time.
Everything goes in the dryer except swimsuits - they’re just hung in a hook to dry. Laundry is easy when the washer is right next to the kitchen.
You know, the nice thing is that having read this whole thread, I won’t have to check back in to read any posting after this.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go get the laundry off the rack in the back yard (blues and greens: towels, tees and undies all mixed into the same washer load). This was a “dark” week – next week will be a “light” week [sheets and white undies, light-colored tees, etc]. Since I live alone one load (usually medium, sometimes small) a week does it. I leave stuff in shades of pink and red (and some purples) in the hamper till I have enough for a load, usually about once a month. Once every two months or so I do a load of cleaning rags, etc.
I don’t let anyone else in my family do my laundry for the mindless and pointless reason that I hate how they fold the dried items. They never do it the same way I do!
The only items that I hand wash are my bike shorts.
I actually have a homemade soap business so I end up with quite a lot of miscut/mis-shapen/underscented bars and otherwise failed experiments. When I have a bunch saved up I run them through the grater attachment of my KitchenAid into a large lidded bucket and stir in a few shakes of Borax. Only takes about a half hour when I have the time and lasts several months. There are special bar soaps on the market specificly for laundry grating and hand-washing (Zote, Octogon, Fels-Naptha, etc), but I find them horribly perfumey (as I do most commercial detergents.)
Dump everything in the wash and a cup of soap. Everything I own has been washed so many times, the colors just can’t run anymore.
Then hang it up. The dryer wastes energy and always leaves my stuff half-wet. It’s only used in emergencies when I need some particular clothes (or just any clothes) fast.
) and non-hangups.
