A few weeks ago, my laundry load included a white cotton bateau top — one of my favorites. When I pulled to it of the wash, to my dismay it had been tainted pink! The culprit? A pair of pink pants I had gotten as a gift just a few weeks earlier. Thankfully, it didn’t take much to remove the pink hue from my beloved white top (soaking in OxiClean for a few hours did the trick), but that meant doing another round of laundry.
If you’ve had incidents like this before, then you know that having a sense of sorting laundry could spare us a fair amount of headache!
If you ask me why a white top had been mixed with pink pants, the answer could be because what I had thought of the “whites” pile usually meant the “generally white, dirtiest clothes” pile — undershirts, underwear, and socks — things that would need a hot water wash cycle. My white top was white, but it hadn’t seemed dirty enough for the “whites” pile. Alas, I realized my error too late.
Why sort?
It can be tempting to just throw everything in one big load in the washing machine. But although that might save time in the short run, it runs the risk of damaging or discoloring items — which means more time and money spent mending or replacing items.
I also like to think that by placing each item in its designated laundry pile, I’m giving that item and the task at hand proper attention and care — which translates into attention and care for the people who use and wear those items.
The tough thing about sorting is that there are so many kinds of clothes to sort! Often, the hamper doesn’t break down so easily into “whites” and “colors.” There are other factors to consider as well, such as the type of fabric or level of dirtiness. And if you’re dealing with a communal laundry room with pay-per-cycle machines (which, as I’m writing this, I am), you also have to consider your budget. So how do we sort laundry without accidentally tie-dyeing, tearing, or otherwise ruining our favorite garments?
I cracked open Cheryl Mendelson’s Home Comforts, which contains an entire chapter called “Gathering, Storing, and Sorting Laundry.” With her method as a guide, here’s how I went about sorting my laundry:
1. Sort by washing method.
According to Mendelson, there are four basic types of washing (in decreasing order of vigorousness): regular (or normal), permanent press, gentle (or delicate), and by hand. The first three are done in the washing machine, which typically displays them as labeled options. The best way to tell which cycle a particular item needs is to read the care label, which almost every laundry item has printed somewhere on a tag.
Caution: Care labels are a helpful guide, but don’t stress if you don’t follow them to the letter, since doing so would probably give you dozens of laundry loads! But really try to honor instructions about bleach, dry cleaning, and colorfastness (that is, whether an item’s dye will bleed in warm or hot water).
We could go more into each washing method in another post, but for now, I’ll include just enough detail to understand the sorting.
A regular cycle washes your sturdiest clothes and linens, as well as anything else that requires a good hot wash. Here are the examples Mendelson lists: “T-shirts and underwear, [cloth] diapers, towels of all sorts, wrinkly sheets, work clothes, play clothes, and sportswear.” I also included socks (which I gather together in a handy-dandy mesh laundry bag). Unsurprisingly, this was my biggest pile, pictured on the right side in the image here.
The permanent press cycle is less intense than the regular and is best suited for synthetic and wrinkle-resistant materials. In this pile (in the middle), I put jeans, dress pants, and button-downs in this cycle so as to protect their color and structure.
The gentle cycle is pretty self-explanatory; it’s for items of delicate material that might be damaged in a more intense cycle. In this pile (on the left), I included some undergarments with lace and hooks and a few formal wear items.
Managing a giant laundry pile
Since the regular cycle pile is often so big, it may be wise to sort out items that would be better washed on their own anyway. A helpful article from Housewife How-To’s recommends washing the following items separately: sheets & pillowcases, towels, underwear & socks, jeans (and I would add baby clothes, especially if using special detergent). I normally don’t wash jeans on their own, since my family only has a few pairs, and it would make for a small, impractical load. Instead, I put jeans in the permanent press cycle, turned inside out for protection.To spread out the work, one idea is to reserve sheets/pillowcases and towels for their own laundry day.
In my initial sorting, I didn’t put anything into a hand washing pile, since there was nothing so delicate that absolutely had to be washed by hand (think extra thin hoes or antique garments). I recommend making this the dry cleaning pile as well, since those are also items that need to be set aside to be taken care of later.
2. Sort by color.
This step was easier than the first. In each washing method pile, sort according the four basic color groups: all white, mostly white, bright colors, and dark colors. Here’s what my regular wash cycle pile looked like after sorting according to color.
3. Sort by dirtiness.
You might find that some items in your piles are especially dirty, caked with mud, food, or some other kind of gunk. Mendelson points out that those items should be washed separately. Otherwise, you could ruin the other clothes that they mix with in the washing machine. Among my piles, there were a few baby clothes that had banana crusties on them (lunchtime can be a messy business!). Since this load only had a few small items with a little extra muck, I decided to scrape off as much as I could while running them under the laundry room sink and return them to their color pile.
4. Sort out hazards.
Zippers, hooks, buttons, and clips don’t mix well with certain delicate items. Take a peek through your piles and see if anything is sitting together that might not treat each other well in the wash. Chances are you’ll find (as I did) that this step was partially taken care of when the gentle cycle items were sorted out earlier. But another hazard to consider is the effect certain fabrics will have on each other. It’s always frustrating to pull out a load and find that your favorite shirt has collected lint! One way to avoid that, Mendelson writes, is to know which materials produce lint and which ones collect it:
“Clothes and linens that produce lint include some towels and other terry-cloth items, especially when they are new; flannel; chenille bedspreads or bathrobes; and rags or fabrics that are fraying. Clothes and linens that will attract or hold lint include those that develop static electricity (polyester, acrylic, nylon, and other synthetics primarily) and pile fabrics like corduroy and velvet.”
After reading this, I realized that I had grouped a flannel and a polyester polo in one pile, so I quickly separated them!
5. Compromise!
Several rounds of sorting could leave you with a lot of piles, and that would mean a lot of laundry loads!
Thankfully, there are compromises that you can make fairly safely. (Checking care labels can also help you make sure that your compromise won’t be disastrous for the item.) Mendelson advises against doing this too often, since you risk giving certain items a less thorough wash than they need. But when necessary, compromises are extremely helpful. Here are a few that Mendelson recommends:
- Combine mostly whites with all-whites (as long as they can take the same kind of bleach, if using, and as long as the mostly whites are colorfast, meaning their dyes won’t bleed in a regular hot water wash).
- Combine bright colors with dark colors (as long as they are colorfast)
- Combine the regular and permanent press piles, washing them both as permanent press (as long as you’re not mixing colors that could bleed into each other or extra dirty items that must be washed separately).
- In general, combine items that normally take a more intense wash with items that need a less intense one. Better to wash everything at least somewhat rather than overdo everything and damage an item.
- In a pinch: I also want to note that sometimes, when you have a very small load (such as on vacation), there’s no shame in an all-in-one laundry load! In that situation, making laundry piles with three items each just isn’t practical, and it’s better to give it all a permanent press or gentle wash.
After my compromise round, I ended up with three piles, ready for laundry! I had a few delicate items leftover, so I decided to hand wash them rather than use a whole extra machine.
Further exploration
After following Mendelson’s method, I became curious as to whether other laundry experts had found other effective ways to sort. As it turns out, a quick internet search shows that indeed there are several ways to sort the laundry. To be honest, seeing so many methods can be a little overwhelming — which way is the best way? After giving it some thought, it seems to me that as long as your sorting method washes your clothes well, without damage, and within a reasonable time frame, the exact approach doesn’t matter as much.
Overall, among the best guides I could find, a few basic principles remained consistent:
- Read care labels
- Sort by color
- Separate out items that need special or extra care (i.e. different fabrics, extra dirty items, and delicates)
- Cautiously compromise
Learning to sort the laundry took some time, but it was really worth it. All of my laundry items came out clean and in tact, and each laundry pile got a much better wash individually than it would have in a crammed, all-in-one cycle. Plus, as I sharpen my sorting skills, I know I’ll save time, money, and undue laundry stress in the long run!
Resources:
“Gathering, Storing, and Sorting Laundry,” Cheryl Mendelson (Home Comforts)
“How to Sort Laundry Properly,” Katie Berry (Housewife How-To’s)
