a conversation on laundry

courtesy of college lgbt server

you can wash colors and whites together if you select cold-warm water on cycle

underwear is always hot cycle

I never got why people made such a big deal about mixing colors

It used to matter more when detergents were optimized for hot water and everyone washed things in hot water unless they were particularly delicate

Basically clothes washing technology has improved since the 80's and 90's and before, but it takes a long time for the lore to update

delicate vs normal etc has to do with how vigorous the agitation is so if you have clothes that might be torn or stretched out of shape by vigorous agitation you want to use a delicate cycle

cold water is fine for most things

Hot is for stuff like sheets and towels etc that tend to collect more dirt/bacteria than a shirt or something (edited)

there definitely still are clothes that can be damaged by hot water

dark wash jeans for example will keep their color much longer if washed in cold rather than hot

It's a function of how the indigo dye is physically bound to the fibers rather than chemically bound (simplification, but that's the basic concept)

We actually got to make indigo dye in one of my gen chem labs, then we dyed different types of fabric to see how it sticks

It's really cool! The dye is white (leuco-indigo) before it goes onto the fabric, then it's oxidized by the air and converts into the blue indigo dye (which is insoluble in water and thus not useful for dyeing fabric)

i have down in my notes that jeans go to warm water settings (not hot, just warm); would you recommend cold water regardless of jean type?

[the notes:]

Temperature

Hot Water: Use for clothes which require a deep clean (e.g. socks, bedsheets, stained clothes)

Warm Water: Synthetic fabrics / jackets, towels, jeans

Cold Water: Dark colors (including dark wash-jeans), athletics clothing (elastic), lightly soiled clothes.

Separate white clothes and colored clothes to avoid discoloration (though with cold water the discoloration effect is somewhat reduced).

Do not wash any 'plastic' clothes in hot water.

Cycles

Normal Cycle: General purpose, works for most items.

Delicates Cycle: Delicate items (bras, lingerie, silk) or any item that is labeled 'hand-wash'

Heavy Cycle: Large loads of colorfast (i.e. holds dye well and does not bleed) clothes or heavily-soiled items or heavy bedding, comforters, rugs, etc.

[end of notes]

I wash everything cold just because it helps most things last longer (and particularly keeps colors from fading) But that might be changing cause I just realized that warm got rid of some deodorant stains that weren't coming off in cold

You're definitely not going to kill your jeans washing warm, they may just fade a smidge faster but that's the cost of getting them fully clean

I mostly have general knowledge about detergents because we chatted about them for a bit in my aqueous chem class

Pods are basically the same as liquid (though some have (had?) powder too), they are just in a fancy single serve pouch that probably gets you the correct amount of detergent more often Most of the time we tend to overuse laundry detergent I don't know of any benefits to using powder, it's become significantly less common, and it has a tendency to sometimes clump up or just not dissolve and then you end up with powder coating all of the clothes

Oh yeah, avoid fabric softener It leaves a coating on fabrics that make them harder to clean this applies to both the liquid fabric softener and the dryer sheets

Instead of dryer sheets look for these wool ball things

They are reusable (for like years) and will take care of the static without adding weird coatings to your clothes

what does static do to clothes out of curiosity

the static causes lint to hold onto it

harder than finals week

at least thats what happened to one of my shirts

makes them annoying to fold and yeah, lint and hair can stick easier

Clothes dryers use a ton of energy and beat the shit out of your clothes If it's feasible, hang drying is better for the environment and will help your clothes last longer

But it's often not really feasible for many people

I used to [dry my clothes] with just the [drying] rack and fan in a corner of the living room