I ordered a cake for my birthday that said Happy 29th. I'm 40, they didn't even check my ID or anything.
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I've literally never had an issue not separating laundry. Years of mixed loads never any colours bled, I thought the whole thing was a myth.
Last week I washed a red dress of my wife's with whites, and all my shirts came out pink like a sitcom. It's real people.
Just don’t buy red clothes
I wash on cold (or warm) and stopped separating laundry by colour a while ago and now separate it by purpose. Like a load of my clothes, a load of my daughter's clothes (that she loads and unloads herself, not raising someone that gets confused when she needs to clean her clothes when she moves out), towels get their own load (with added bleach, colourful ones just fade over time), same with bedsheets (no bleach here though).
If I remember, I'll do new colourful clothes separately on their first wash with the assumption that most of the dye that is going to come out will come out during the first wash.
I went the other way. Never separated for ages, then I got some nice wool socks for work. I don't care about colors running, but I do want to minimize wear on my delicate clothes, and need to use more expensive detergent for the wool. So now I do my whites on a more delicate cycle. And I'm suddenly finding my flimsy cheap-ass home socks and boxers that used to disintegrate in no time are lasting waayyyyy longer.
Another thing you can do is swap dryer sheets for felted wool balls. I've also added tennis balls. Helps dry them faster (I think because the balls create pockets of air for the moisture to get into as they tumble, and the wool seems to play a similar role as the sheets electrically, not sure if the tennis balls do the same or are neutral in that regard).
Apparently dryer sheets are rough on clothes. Though tbh I don't know whether the increased mechanical damage from the tennis balls are easier on it than the chemical damage from the sheets. And I've never had boxers or socks disintegrate from the laundry, mine have failed more from wear and tear from use (with dryer sheet or without). So this might be more of an experiment recommendation than a "this will work better".
I have never used any dryer sheets etc, and have tried to move away from the dryer entirely. The dryer itself is the biggest avoidable source of wear and tear, heat and unnecessary mechanical agitation. If I am early enough in doing my laundry on Saturday I hang it up, I only use the dryer now if I was late and need them dried before work on Monday.
You can use vinegar to set dyes.
Red dye is particularly hard to set unless the Dyer knows and cares to do it
The dumb shit you learn when you date someone who does historically accurate recreation events....
If you wash whites with black & colored items they become grey. perhaps generally unnoticeable but it's one of those details that makes people look really well put together.
They make these sheets you throw in with your mixed color loads, I think called Color Catchers or something?
Most of your white clothes are more like grey off white now if you'd care about that. I dont.
I always sort mine by white, black, everything else. The whites can be bleached a bit to give 'em pop. The blacks don't get fuzzies from the colors. After washing I pull the stuff that shouldn't be dried, like hats, bras and shoes, and pull the stuff that's spun down to barely damp, hang that stuff.
They're these things you wear on your lower extremities for protection, comfort, warmth or fashion.
They even provide more than one of those benefits much of the time!
Holy shit that sounds awesome. Can I buy them anywhere or do I have to make these things myself?
You can buy them at many, but not all, places.
You COULD make them yourself too, but that would require years of training and expensive special equipment and making good ones would STILL be difficult and time consuming, so prolly a better idea to just buy or steal some for now 🤷🏻
Too much wear and tear. They weren't meant to be dried in a tumbler.
I guess my question is what are they doing in the wash to begin with. I don't think I've ever seen that before
I saw quite a few posts about it on hiking/sports subreddits in the olden days, it's used for removing odour from sports shoes. I even tried it myself - depends on the shoe ofc, but like 30°C and lowest/no spin was completely fine. Pre-wipe the mud off, and add some worn old towels for padding, so it's not just two shoes clanging around in the empty machine.
Huh. We wash tennis shoes all the time, particularly stuff we found for resale. Not like my wife is throwing her heels in there! Or I might stop through a swamp in my combat boots, that's usually good for a wash.
same! i washed some red pants that i bought at an international clothes market and now i have a bunch of pink clothes!! i consider it an upgrade
Was that red dress washed before? I always wash new clothes before the first wear, then just separate lights and darks in general. (Disclaimer: I own literally zero white clothes, so even the light ones are already pastel colours.)
Dude I had also been doing that for years and I just had a hoodie bleed onto all my clothes. Idk wtf
I used to do that too until I had to use shirts to work. White shirts lose that sheen and bright white so quickly if you mix them.
My wife gets these dresses from a hippie store that look beautiful but are so bad about bleeding dye in the wash. I'd never had it happen before then, but I also used to wash on cool before we had kids.
You can put cinnamon rolls in a waffle maker to make instant cinnamon roll waffles.
You can wash sheets on the towel setting.
People use those settings? It all goes through the heavy soiled gauntlet for me
Maybe others don't heavily soil their sheets
Live a little
No, you misunderstand: They're washing by passing their stuff through gauntlets.
You don't have a peeing section in your bed?
well, if you have kids...
that is probably making your clothes age out faster than they need to (and takes longer and uses more power/water).
I wash clothes when the hamper is full, about once every two weeks. Everything together (except whites) longest wash, hot water.
Whatever comes out the other side goes back in the closet for the next round.
People make a big deal about buying clothes, washing clothes, folding clothes, organizing closets, matching clothes, shoes, belts, accessories, brands, who wears what when, blah, blah, blah.
Weather and society permitting, I wouldn't even wear clothes. Fuck clothes.
I use the bulky setting for sheets, blankets, and towels (probably similar to towel setting) not because it washes differently, it doesn’t, but because it has different thresholds to consider the load balanced during spin, and spins it to different speeds. I want my washer to last, so I use it properly with big heavy stuff.
I also use the sanitary setting when I wash underpants and post-bidet towels, but that’s because it superheats the water. Everything else gets washed on tap cold, regular cycle.
Yeah but then your sheets will be extra absorbent and you’ll get dry skin.

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