You know how annoying it is when you discover that your white clothes have a stain because they rolled with a black cloth in the machine. One of the best ways to prevent scenarios like this is to sort your laundry before washing. Follow our steps and tips on how to sort laundry for the best results.
Tips to Sort Clothes For Laundry
It’s easy to throw all your dirty clothes into the machine without separating anything. But that is the easiest way to find a shade of pink or black on your dear white clothes. Also, sorting your laundry preserves colors, reduces the spread of lint and fuzz, reduces agitation on lightweight clothes, and lowers drying time. Here are some easy steps and tips to help you separate your laundry:
Sort According to Fabric Type
One of the methods to sort your laundry is according to fabric type. By this, we mean you should identify the cotton, the linens, the wools, and the lycra and put them in a separate pile. Also, wash heavier items like towels and sweatshirts away from lighter weights clothes like silk and linen. This prevents abrasion or damage to the lightweight fabric because heavier clothes take longer to wash and dry but can take a higher level of heat and abrasion than lightweight clothes. For the same reason, separate clothes with accessories like buttons, embroidery, and zippers from lingerie and swimwear.
- Put delicates like lingeries, silks, and pantyhoses onto a separate pile to keep away from the agitation.
- Separate lint givers like towels away from lint receivers like corduroy and suede.
Sort According to Newness and Neatness
Washing your new items with old ones isn’t a good idea, so it is best to separate the new ones from the old ones. Also, it would be best to separate somewhat dirty clothes from those heavily soiled ones. Clothes with oily stains like acrylic paint or cooking oil and clothes with ground-in stains like soil should be in a different sort. Another reason to separate clothes by the amount of stain is that soiled clothes take a longer time to get cleaned than neater clothes. Overwashing fairly neat clothes can stress the fibers through prolonged agitation, and this makes them more prone to damage.
Tip: Always pretreat clothes with stains like paint, soil, and oil with a stain remover before washing them. Pretreating prevents transferring and permanent setting in the stain.
Sort By Colors
Clothes with darker colors and more likely to bleed when you wash them. That means you risk damaging lighter-colored clothes and whites if you wash them with darker clothes. For this reason, it’s best to sort according to the color of your clothes. Separate dark-colored clothes, light colors, medium-colored clothes, and whites into a separate pile and wash them in different loads. You can wash dark clothes like black and blue and red by themselves, then wash the whites and light colors separately too.
- Dark clothes include colors like black, navy blue, deep purple, grey, and red.
- Light colors include clothes like light blue, yellow, baby pink, nude, and light green.
- Consider separating denim and jeans into a separate pile regardless of the color.
Create Sub Categories
After separating by color, fabric type, and amount of dirt, you may want to create more subcategories, like the washing and drying cycle. For example, it’s recommended that newborn items are washed separately from the rest of the pile. Also, bedding items like duvets and bedspreads are best washed away from other fabric types.
Other Laundry Tips For Best Washing Results
Here are more laundry tips to take note of when washing your clothes:
1: Always Pretreat Stain
Pretreat tough stains from your clothes before washing them to prevent the transfer of the stains to another fabric. Also, pretreating stains prevents stains like oil and blood from setting into the fabric permanently due to heat.
2. Test For Colorfastness
When you are unsure if a clothes bleed dye or if a particular washing detergent or stain removal will work on a cloth, it’s best to test for colorfastness. To do this, apply warm water to a hidden part of the clothes and add a piece of white cloth over it. Next, use a hot iron to press the warm water into the fabric and see if there is any colored leak.
Alternatively, you can soak cotton wool in warm water or the laundry stain removers and dab a hidden part of the cloth. If the color bleeds into the cotton wool, it’s not colorfast.
3. Bag Your Delicates
Protect your delicate clothes like lingeries, performance fabrics like swimwear, and other clothes like denim by turning them inside out and placing them in a mesh washing bag. This reduces the agitation experience by the clothes
4. For Blended Fabrics, Follow the Instruction For Fabric With Higher Percentage
If you have blended fabric with, say, a blend of 60% cotton and 40% polyester, then it’s best to follow the washing instruction for cotton. This rule applies to almost all fabric types except silks, wool, and cashmere. So if a cloth contains an amount of silk, follow the washing instructions for silk.
5. Wash Blacks Inside Out
One of the best tips to care for your black cloth is to turn them inside out. This will protect the cloth’s outer part from agitation and help maintain its color. You can also do this for your other clothes like jeans.
6. Read The Care Instructions
Ensure you read the manufacturer’s care instructions on each piece of clothing before washing them. This will make it easier to wash fabrics with similar washing instructions together. If you are familiar with your laundry, you may not need to read the care label every time you need to sort.
7. Check Each Item As Your Sort
If you have a lot of clothes to sort, check through the clothes one after the other to reduce the chance of pink socks ending up with your white shirts.
8. Use a Partitioned Laundry Basket
Some partitioned laundry baskets can save you the extra time spent sorting out clothes before washing them. Throw your clothes to separate partitions of the laundry basket depending on the color, fabric stain, and amount of dirt. When you wash, your laundry will already be in separate piles.
9. Use The Right Detergent
Detergents do not all work the same way. Some are specifically made for certain fabrics, materials, and colors, so it’s best to use something that is suitable for your cloth type.
10. Empty Pockets Before Washing
Emptying your pockets before washing is another tip to ensure the best results. You could have left a tissue, socks, or a dollar in your pocket, and washing your cloth without removing them can lead to stains or lint. For this reason, it’s best to empty your pocket before throwing the clothes into the washer.
11. Save the Bleach For the Whites
Another thing that causes discoloration and damage to clothes is using bleach on fabrics that can withstand it. Bleach is a powerful cleaning product, so it often wears out fabric and may leave bleach stains on colored clothes. For this reason, it’s best to use your chlorine bleach for just your white clothes.