We’ve all done it. You open the washer on a fresh load of whites. All your favorite white t-shirts, socks, and towels are going to be sparkly clean, supremely bright, and ready for…wait, why is everything pink? And then you pull out that red sock that snuck along for the ride.
We’ll be the first to admit that learning how to sort laundry by color may not be anybody’s idea of a party. Not to mention, life is busy, which is why it’s so tempting to just huck all your dirty clothes together into the washer, hope for the best, and move on with your day.
The good news is that figuring out how to sort your laundry by color only takes a few minutes. And once you learn some easy strategies for sorting laundry, your clothes will look better and last longer.
1. Sort your clothes by fabric type and shades of light and dark. This will protect fine fabrics like wool, silk, and linen from getting damaged and help avoid accidental color mixing.
2. New garments or darker colored clothes may bleed. Wash them separately and turn them inside out.
3. Delicates are called delicate for a reason. Wash these garments on gentle cycle or by hand. Refer to the care label for specifics.
Deep, dark colored clothing is more likely to release some of its color in the wash. To help avoid damaging your other clothes (or turning them various mystery shades), sort your laundry by color before washing. It’s also a good idea to wash jeans and dark colored shirts and sweatshirts by themselves for the first few cycles.
Consider washing heavy items like bath towels separately from lighter weight clothes like tank tops. It’s also worth sorting laundry with buttons and zippers from delicate fabrics that might get torn or scratched.
All that fabric separating will pay off come drying time. Heavier items naturally take longer to dry, so if they’re lumped in with lighter fabrics, half your load is over-dried, which can stretch and damage the fibers, and half is under-dried.
- Sort by levels of dirtiness. Wash super dirty or stained clothes separately on a longer, heavy-duty cycle to give them the extra churn they need to get clean.
- Invest in a partitioned laundry basket. This is an absolute laundry game changer that will help “macro” sort lights and darks along the way, saving you time later.
- Choose a plant-based detergent that’s tough on stains and works great in any water temperature. Our EasyDose Ultra Concentrated Laundry Detergent even has an auto dosing feature that gives you the perfect dose in one easy squeeze. This detergent is a USDA Certified Biobased Product 98%.
Now that everything is clean, fresh, and dry, it’s folding time. Since we know folding phobia is real, we made this easy-to-follow guide for How to Fold Laundry. You’re welcome.
We hope these tips on how to sort laundry by color will lead you to laundry bliss. Or at least make sure there’s never another red sock incident!