Life is incomplete without laundry. Clean clothing keeps people looking and smelling good while maintaining the quality of the dress. However, many people are unaware that there are more effective and safer ways to do laundry than simply washing their clothes in the washing machine.
When it comes to your laundry, sorting is the best thing you can do. It can prevent clothing from being damaged and make for better, more efficient washing. Sorting your laundry is easy when you categorize items and streamline your laundry organization.
Let’s discuss how to sort laundry in an easy way!
Sorting Laundry: Why Do People Do It?
Sorting laundry is smart for many reasons, including:
- Keep lighter colored or white items from bleeding into dark colors.
- Separate washable according to the machine’s temperature, such as hot water for whites and cold water for dark.
- To prevent the interaction of different materials. You should wash it separately if you want to wash your silk or satin nightshirt with your zippered jean jacket.
- Keep items like socks and sportswear together, especially those that need to be sanitized.
How to Sort Laundry Before Washing: Step by Step Instructions
The four bag sorters that I have stuffed in every bedroom closet allow me to sort my laundry as I get undressed. To make this task a bit easier from the beginning, I’ll tell you how I do it.
Check the following steps!
Step 1: Read the Label
You may not need to repeat this step whenever you do your laundry if you are very familiar with it. But in the case of teaching your child how to do laundry, it’s a crucial step. Make sure that you read the care labels on each item.
You can find out if an item can be machine washed and what water temperature to use on the label. Sort all clothes marked “wash separately” or “hand wash” into a separate pile.
You should trust the label on a garment that says “dry clean only” when you are a novice at the laundry. Place the garment in a bag and take it to a professional dry cleaner. You will learn that some items designated as dry clean only can be hand washed after a bit of experience.
Step 2: Sort by Color
You should sort your items according to their color first. Washing white or lighter-colored garments in this manner can help prevent dye transfer problems.
- Sort clothes into piles based on their color. You should use your white pile for white cotton articles such as socks, underwear, and t-shirts.
- Colored for the light-colored rise should be pink, lavender, light blue, light green, and yellow. Finally, your dark pile should include gray, black, navy, red, and purple articles.
- You might want to separate denim into its pile. You can wash this separately or along with your dark pile.
Step 3: Sort by Fabric
It’s a good chance you have items made of a variety of fabrics and textures. It’s important to sort these after you have sorted the articles into color piles to make sure everything from the quality of your delicates to preventing lint from sticking to certain fabrics. Additionally, it is possible to speed up the drying process.
- Organize delicates by color. It includes lingerie, pantyhose, washable silk, and anything else you don’t want to be agitated too harshly in the washing machine.
- Keep lint-producing items apart from lint-receiving things. For instance, you should never place towels next to corduroy.
- If you wish to run a separate wash cycle for synthetics and natural fibers, sort them out. Lint will then not transfer.
- Make sure you separate clothing by weight. For instance, with thin tee shirts, you don’t wash heavier cotton pants. During washing, heavier fabrics can scratch delicate materials.
Step 4: Sort by Blended Fabric
If you want to wash a blend, follow the instructions for the fabric with the highest percentage. For example, you should follow cotton washing instructions if the label indicates the shirt is 70% cotton and 30% polyester.
No matter how small the silk percentage is, follow the silk washing instructions for the item. You should follow woolen and cashmere washing instructions. But if the article contains both silk and wool, wash it according to wool’s instructions.
Step 5: Pretreat Stained Items
To pre-treat oil-based stains, rings around the collar, tricky straps, and underwire, you must use the wash and stain bar. With stain solution, you can easily remove the different stain tannins such as wine, coffee, ink, grass, urine, and blood.
Step 6: Separate New Clothes
Do you know how much color new denim can lose when you rock a new pair of jeans only to discover your palms are the same shade of blue?
It is best to wash new jeans alone for the first few washes to avoid staining your other clothes. Wash your favorite pair inside out in cold water when you want to maintain its perfect shade of blue.
Step 7: Separate Heavy Soiled Items
Sort as usual, but wash deeply soiled items separately with ground-in dirt or oily stains, such as motor oil or lots of cooking oil. As a result, heavy soil will not re-deposit on other clothing. In addition, you will prevent strong odors from transferring to other clothes.
Step 8: Use Mesh Bags
Before placing them in mesh washing bags, you should turn inside out delicates, woolen performance fabrics, and denim. Additionally, mesh bags help prevent small items such as socks from getting lost in the wash.
FAQs
Is it better to wash clothes with hot or cold water?
You can usually wash your clothes with warm water. It provides good cleaning without fading or shrinking. Whenever possible, use cold water 80 F on dark and bright colors that bleed or delicate fabrics. Germs and heavy soil are best removed with hot water.
Can you wash towels with your clothes?
It’s necessary to wash bath towels separately from clothes for sanitary reasons. The washing of both towels together with clothes can transfer germs and bacteria between the items. In addition, when damp, towels dry slower than most clothes, so it is easier to dry them in the same load.
What happens if you wash clothes in cold water instead of warm?
According to Energy Star, you can save up to $66 in heating costs by washing your clothes with cold water each time. Fabrics can shrink more petite, be fadeless, and last longer if you wash them with cold water.
Who provides commercial service for laundry work?
Long Island Laundry Company provides online commercial laundry services in New York. They provide services related to wash & fold laundry, towel service, dry cleaning, laundry pickup and delivery.
Final Words
Sorting color laundry is important since dark fabrics may damage your clothes if they are wet. You should use the method that is most convenient to you for maintaining the integrity of your laundry. Your laundry should be subcategorized according to the fabric size, color, and type, then washed properly.
