How to Separate Laundry the Right Way
Separating laundry seems simple, but there's genuine confusion about what actually needs to be separated and when you can bend the rules. Here's a straightforward guide from the team here in Brenham.
Quick Answer
Sort laundry into at least three piles: darks, lights, and colors. Always separate brand new items, true whites, and heavily soiled clothes. With cold water and well-washed items, you can often combine darks and midtone colors safely.
The Basic Categories
At minimum, sort your laundry into three groups:
Darks
Black, navy, dark brown, charcoal, dark green, burgundy, and other deep colors. These are the items most likely to bleed dye, especially when new. Washing darks together keeps them from transferring dye onto lighter items.
Lights
White, cream, beige, light gray, light pink, and pastels. These show stains and dye transfer most visibly. If you have true whites you want to keep bright (undershirts, white socks, white towels), consider separating them from off-whites and pastels.
Colors
Everything in between—reds, blues, greens, oranges, purples, and bright patterns. These are the trickiest because bright colors can bleed onto each other. A brand-new red shirt can turn a load of blue jeans slightly purple.
Do You Really Need to Separate?
The honest answer: it depends. Here's when separation genuinely matters and when you can relax the rules.
Always Separate
- Brand new items: New clothes, especially dark or bright ones, release the most dye in their first 3-5 washes. Always wash new items separately or with similar colors.
- True whites: If you want white clothes to stay white, wash them alone. Even light-colored items can gradually yellow whites over many washes.
- Heavily soiled items: Muddy jeans, greasy work clothes, or gym gear should go in their own load. The extra dirt and grime can redeposit on cleaner clothes.
- Reds and oranges: Red dye is particularly aggressive and bleeds more than most colors. Keep reds separate until you've washed them several times.
Can Usually Combine
- Well-washed darks and midtone colors: After 5+ washes, most darks have released their excess dye. You can safely combine navy jeans with olive t-shirts and burgundy socks in cold water.
- Similar tones: A load of all blues, or all earth tones, is perfectly safe even with newer items.
- Cold water loads: Cold water significantly reduces dye bleeding. If you're combining colors, cold water is your safety net.
Sorting Beyond Color
Color isn't the only reason to separate clothes. These factors also matter:
Fabric Weight
Heavy items like jeans, towels, and sweatshirts tumble aggressively in the washer and dryer. Lightweight items like t-shirts, underwear, and dress shirts get tossed around and can stretch or tear when mixed with heavy fabrics.
- Wash jeans and heavy pants together
- Wash lightweight shirts and underwear together
- Towels get their own load (they shed lint onto everything)
Fabric Type
- Delicates (silk, lace, thin knits): Wash on gentle cycle in a mesh bag or by hand.
- Synthetics (polyester, nylon, spandex): Lower heat in the dryer—they melt and pill at high temperatures.
- Cotton: Can handle higher heat but may shrink. Medium heat is safest.
- Denim: Wash inside-out to reduce fading. Separate from lint-prone items.
Lint Producers vs. Lint Magnets
This is one of the most overlooked sorting rules. Towels, fleece, and flannel shed massive amounts of lint. Dark synthetics and knits attract and hold lint like magnets. Washing them together means spending 20 minutes with a lint roller afterward.
- Lint producers: Towels, flannel sheets, fleece, chenille, terry cloth
- Lint magnets: Black polyester, corduroy, velvet, dark knits, microfiber
- Rule: Never wash these two groups together.
The Practical Approach
If you're doing laundry at a laundromat and want to be efficient without ruining clothes, here's a realistic sorting system:
Three-Load System (Minimum)
- Whites and lights: True whites, off-whites, light grays, pastels. Warm or hot water. Can add bleach or whitener.
- Darks and colors: Everything dark and colorful that's been washed before. Cold water.
- Towels and heavy items: Bath towels, kitchen towels, jeans, sweatshirts. Warm water, higher spin speed.
Five-Load System (Ideal)
- True whites: White undershirts, white socks, white towels. Hot water with bleach or whitener.
- Lights and pastels: Cream, beige, light blue, light pink. Warm water.
- Bright colors: Reds, blues, greens, patterns. Cold water.
- Darks: Black, navy, charcoal, dark brown. Cold water, inside-out.
- Towels and bedding: Warm water, extra rinse.
At a laundromat, you can run all these loads simultaneously using different machines, then dry them on appropriate heat settings. Brenham-area residents who come to Alamo Laundry run all five loads at once and finish in about an hour. What takes 5 separate cycles at home becomes one trip.
Special Cases
New Denim
New jeans—especially raw or dark-wash denim—bleed indigo dye heavily. Wash them alone in cold water for the first 3-5 washes. Turn them inside-out to reduce fading. Some people add a cup of white vinegar to the first wash to help set the dye.
Work Uniforms
If your work clothes have grease, oil, or chemical exposure, always wash them separately. These substances can transfer to other clothes and may not come out in a standard wash cycle. Use the hottest water the fabric can handle.
Athletic Wear
Synthetic athletic wear (moisture-wicking shirts, leggings, sports bras) should be washed together on cold with a sport-specific detergent. Regular detergent builds up in synthetic fibers and traps odor. Never use fabric softener on athletic wear—it coats the fibers and destroys moisture-wicking properties.
Baby Clothes
Wash baby clothes separately using a fragrance-free, hypoallergenic detergent. Baby skin is sensitive to detergent residue, dyes, and fragrances. Skip the fabric softener and use an extra rinse cycle.
Pet Bedding and Pet-Hair-Covered Items
Wash pet items separately. Pet hair clogs washing machine drains and transfers to other clothes. Shake or lint-roll pet items before washing. Use a pet hair removal cycle if the machine offers one, or run items through the dryer for 10 minutes first to loosen hair.
Pre-Laundromat Prep
Sort your laundry at home before you head to the laundromat. It saves time and reduces the chance of mixing loads under the fluorescent lights.
- Sort at home using separate hampers, bags, or piles.
- Check all pockets. Tissues, pens, coins, and lip balm can ruin an entire load.
- Turn darks inside-out to reduce fading from agitation.
- Pre-treat stains before you leave. Apply stain remover and let it sit during the drive.
- Zip up zippers and unbutton buttons. Open zippers snag on other clothes; buttoned shirts stress buttonholes in the wash.
- Tie drawstrings so they don't get pulled out during the wash cycle.
- Put delicates in mesh bags to protect them from snagging.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I wash everything in cold water to avoid separating?
Cold water significantly reduces dye bleeding, but it doesn't eliminate it entirely—especially with brand new items. You can safely combine well-washed darks and colors in cold water, but always keep true whites and new brightly colored items separate.
What happens if I accidentally wash a red item with whites?
If your whites turned pink, rewash them immediately (before drying!) with hot water, bleach or color remover, and no other clothes. The sooner you treat it, the better your chances of removing the dye transfer. Once the stain is heat-set in the dryer, it's much harder to remove.
Do color catcher sheets actually work?
Yes, color catcher sheets (like Shout Color Catcher) absorb loose dye in the wash water and can prevent transfer between items. They're useful as an extra precaution when you're combining colors, but they're not foolproof—don't rely on them for brand new reds or dark denim.
Should towels be washed separately?
Yes, for two reasons. First, towels shed enormous amounts of lint that sticks to other clothes. Second, towels need hotter water and a longer dry cycle than most clothing. Washing them together with clothes means either over-drying your clothes or under-drying your towels.
Can I wash sheets and clothes together?
It's not ideal. Sheets wrap around smaller items in the wash, trapping them inside and preventing them from getting clean. Sheets also dry at a different rate than clothes. Wash sheets separately or with pillowcases and light towels.
How many times should I wash new clothes before mixing them?
Wash new items separately (or with similar colors) for the first 3-5 washes. After that, most excess dye has been released and the item is safe to wash with mixed loads. Dark denim and deep reds may need more washes before they stop bleeding.
Is it bad to wash everything together?
If all your clothes are similar colors, well-washed, and you use cold water, you'll probably be fine. But mixing true whites with darks, new items with old, or lint producers with lint magnets will eventually cause problems—dingy whites, dye transfer, or lint-covered clothes.
Run Multiple Loads at Once
Sort into as many piles as you need and wash them all simultaneously at Alamo Laundry, located at 624 W Alamo St in Brenham, TX.
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