How Do You Sort Laundry?

by Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger

15 Oct 2008 04:50 PM

All across the land, people are hiding a dirt little secret...their laundry. One thing I have discovered lately, is that people are reluctant to talk about how they do their laundry, when and how often they do their laundry and how they sort it all. Why is this? Keep reading and then share your thoughts.

I often ask people how they do their laundry, partly because I am just curious and partly because I want some reassurance that I am doing it the right way. But laundry is personal. Not only is it the evidence of our real life personal dirt and our intimate things, but there is some weird association we have within ourselves about the state of our laundry. Is it dirtier than others? Does it smell because we smell? The whole thing is pretty funny, really.

I've come across all sorts of different ways that people sort laundry. There are the extremes, such as the people who throw everything all together in one load and wait for it all to eventually blend into the same multicultural melting pot of a dull gray. Or there is the super organized who sorts everything into multiple categories, such as whites, bright colors, dark colors, reds, dark bath towels, light bath towels, kitchen towel jeans, light sheets and blankets, dark sheets and blankets, and then further separate it out by family member and then again by delicates. They may be off doing something else around the house when they will suddenly sit up straighter, get a panicked look on their faces and wonder if a stray sock accidentally got into the reds.

While I tend toward the obsessed in my sorting, we simply don't have enough clothes or things to microsort to my hearts content. So I compromise, throwing the reds in with the darks, the jeans in with the darks, lights or towels depending on their shades, and even once, the white kitchen towels in with the white socks. Shhh.

Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, creating a home in the Home Blog and caring for little ones in the Baby Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.

Related Articles:

Guide to Six Laundry Bleaching Agents

Cheap Laundry Tricks

No Excuses! Hang Your Laundry

Luxury Laundry: Built-in Washer and Dryer

Learn more about Mary Ann Romans

Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat.

View Full Profile | More from this Blogger

Julie Gentry (5915) 20 Oct 2008 10:52 AM

My husband keeps his clothes in a separate hamper; otherwise, they end up in the dreaded "waiting to be folded and put away" pile. I wash his nice clothes on cold with Dreft or the equivalent. It's just a load a week. His running and workout stuff is bleached, boraxed, washed in hot, on the heavy load cycle with an extra rinse. P-U.

For the rest, we sort as we're loading. Regular clothes on cold, whites on hot with bleach, smelly stuff on warm with borax. It sure helps having a large capacity washer.

MomOfSJandL (30) 24 Oct 2008 08:27 AM

I sort my laundry very simply. Hot wash, Medium wash and Cold wash. Any whites and things to be washed in hot water such as socks (no matter the color) and underwear go in the Hot pile. Towels, washcloths (kitchen and bathroom), sheets, etc go in the warm category. Most clothes go in the cold, along with anything stained that I don't want to get ruined in the hot wash. Aside from the diaper laundry, that's it! Too simple? Too complicated?

Mary Ann Romans (26886) 24 Oct 2008 08:56 AM

I do most of my laundry in cold, too. I haven't tried mixing different colored socks in hot--no bleeding of colors?