I always wash new things separately now, after a I bought my son a Sonic blanket. That thing covered everything in the washer and dryer with blue fuzz.

You should wash all new clothes BEFORE you wear them. They spray them with poison and repellent to protect them from bugs and critters during shipping from across the world.

Said like a man who didn't have to go to high school gym class with pink Fruit Of The Loom tighty-whities.

Yeah as long as you don't fucking boil the mixed colours you'll be fine.

Yes, actually

A combination of better dyes that don't bleed as much, and detergent that works better in colder water (which bleeds less dyes).

https://youtu.be/HsmEl3P2vEM

Depends on the items and their age, but yes, you should generally be fine.

The last time I had an issue was some coloured pillow cases that bled all over my white bedsheets.

Solution: don't own white shirts

Its improvement in dyes more than anything, not detergent

Do you wash in hot or cold water?

Me who wears clothes that are 12+ years old:

also don't use a clothes dryer and your stuff will last way longer

Some additions.

You can mix colors, just don't add white clothes, especially when the color clothes are new.

Then there is someone like me that still wears 5 to 10 year old clothes that still look fresh 🙈

Put in a freshly bought red item and something white. Works every time if you want your stuff to be pink.

🖤

This is the way.

You still have to sort the black turtlenecks from the Slightly Darker Black turtlenecks though.

It's fine a nice cornflower blue on all your shirts is actually delightful

Going to sound dumb but get some Bluing Dye. The name is a bit of a misnomer. It'll brighten them back up

I have never seen a washing machine that doesn't let you set the temperature first (between 30-90°C). I'm living in the EU.

The vast majority of washing machines do both hot and cold, at least in North America. Hot is the default. The machine doesn't make the water hot though, it just takes hot water from your hot water tank. This means that there are two machines that are running at the same time. You have a hot water tank that is going to be boiling more water and the washing machine that is using the hot water that is being boiled. To use cold water, you typically have to select the cold wash setting on most washers here in North America. In this case, it just takes water from the tap instead of the hot water tank.

Ours which is at least 30 years old has hot/warm, warm/cold, and cold/cold.

I usually use hot/warm just because it fills faster. It's not warming the water. It's drawing the hot water from the hot water heater. If we use cold cold it will make sure to only draw cold water and it takes awhile. Hot means it just grabs all the water it can.

They don't usually have heating elements, they have hot water hookups and mix the two to achieve a certain temperature.

I have never even seen a washing machine that warms water.

For real?

These days, lots of detergents actually work better in cold water. They contain enzymes for dissolving e.g. blood stains, and those enzymes are typically proteins, which fall apart when heated too much. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe (most?) proteins fall apart around 42°C. This might be simplifying far too much.

But yeah, basically you want to generally wash at 30°C.