A College Student’s Primer to Sorting Laundry

Six weeks after my son left for college, I got a call asking how to sort laundry. Seems he only had a couple of dollars for the coin op washing machine, and couldn’t figure out how to sort his lights, brights, darks, towels, jeans, bedspread, sports duffel, and rayon shirts into two loads.

So how do you sort laundry when you can only do a couple of loads?

Different materials react in different ways which is why not all laundry can be thrown in a heavy duty, hot water cycle. Jeans will turn white tee shirts gray, red sweatshirts will turn white underwear pink, wools and rayons will shrink, and towels will coat polar fleece with a layer of lint that’s impossible to remove. Sorting laundry means separating those clothes into piles with similar characteristics.

Most of us have at least a few things requiring a cold water, gentle wash. These include wool sweaters, rayon and silk shirts, and other delicates. Cold water garments usually have washing instructions right on the neck, beneath the manufacturer’s label. For these clothes, don’t waste quarters washing them in a Laundromat; hand wash them in a bucket or in the bathroom sink instead.

A spoonful of soap, a gallon of tepid water, and a few minutes of agitating the item by hand is usually enough to get the garment clean. Pour out the soapy water, rinse with clean, and then roll the item in a towel to squeeze out excess moisture. Hang the item to dry on a hanger or over the balcony.

For the rest of the laundry, they can usually be done in two separate loads.

For the first load, combine the whites with brights and wash in warm water with a cold rinse. Whites can include white underwear, tee-shirts, socks, shirts, light sweatshirts, light colored mid-weight pants and shorts, light-colored sports clothes, pajamas, sheets, and dress shirts. Do not include anything that’s red or you’ll find the cottons turning an insipid shade of pink. Also, avoid the temptation to throw wools and rayons into the load and washing everything with cold to save on hand washing. The cold temperatures will not allow the soap to lift the dirt and sweat out of the clothes, and you will soon find them turning dingy and starting to smell.

As far as the rest of the clothes; those dark jeans, cargos and Carharts of all colors, dark tee shirts, dark sweatshirts, socks, nylon jackets, sports duffle, and dark sportswear can go in a separate load, which can also be washed in warm water with a cold rinse. For clothes with lots of ground in dirt, pretreat them in your apartment with a laundry pretreatment or a scrub brush and warm soapy water.

And what about towels? If mom sent you to college with new towels, expect them to shed for a while. Towels will pill on polar fleece jackets, velours, wools, sweaters, and dress pants. As long as you don’t have anything that collects lint in your laundry, toss them in with the appropriate load. A better solution, is to do a “towel load” with several of your roommates, and just split the cost of the machine 3 or 4 ways. Even better yet, tell Mom to keep the new towels and take the old ones instead

If you have a red shirt or pair of socks in your wardrobe, these will have to be handled with special care. Most red clothes will continue to bleed red, even after repeated washings. They should never be washed with lights or brights, but should be combined with the darks instead.

A bedspread or blanket is a load all by itself, and should never be washed with other items. Unless the bedspread is grimy, a cold water wash and rinse is usually enough to get it clean. If you remember to use sheets, and drape the blanket or bedspread over the balcony to air periodically, you can usually get by with washing it only once a semester.

Sorting laundry just isn’t that tough, as long as you remember to sort the darks from the lights, keep the cold water delicates separate, and put the reds and the towels in the right loads.