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Master the Art of Sorting
It’s not really an art, but sorting is a necessary task if you want your favorite white T-shirt to stay, well, white. Sorting laundry is the process of dividing dirty clothing and linens into separate loads according to color. Here’s how to do it:
- Whites: Put white items in one pile. Make sure nothing red sneaks in because one red item could turn all your whites pink. Wash whites in hot water.
- Pales: Wash pale-colored clothing and linens together in warm or cold water. To maintain the color of your pale clothes, use color-safe bleach.
- Brights: Put your canary yellows, kelly greens, bright turquoises, and other vibrant colors into their own load. Use cold water to prevent colors from bleeding.
- Reds: Anything pink, rose, apple, or any other shade of red goes in this pile. Wash reds in cold water.
- Darks: Group dark-colored fabrics together. Put dark eggplants, grays, blacks, and so on in one wash to prevent them from bleeding onto your lighter fabrics. Wash darks in cold water.
- Delicates: Wash items made of fine, fragile materials, such as lace or silk, together, either by hand or on your washer’s delicate cycle and in a mesh bag that’s safe for the washing machine. Consider hand-washing items if you’re not sure they’ll survive the machine.
- Lint-prone fabrics: Keep lint-producing fabrics, such as terrycloth, separate from lint-attracting fabrics, such as knits.
- Really dirty laundry: Wash heavily soiled items (rugs, muddy jeans, etc.) separately from lightly soiled items in hot water.
If you’re really pressed for time, sort your laundry into these three groups:
- Whites
- Reds
- Everything else
At the very least, you want to keep your whites from going gray and your reds from bleeding all over your other clothes. And don’t forget to pretreat any stains with a stain remover so that they don’t set in for good.
Read the Fabric Care Labels
If you’re not sure which pile an item belongs in, read the fabric care label on the inside collar, waistband, or left-hand seam of the garment.
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