The Struggle of Washing Yellow Clothes

[lisab]

OK, very mundane topic.

I wash blues with greens, or blues with dark purples.

Browns, blacks and grays - quite compatible.

Reds and pinks, or reds with light purples.

Whites alone.

I don't own any orange clothes.

But yellows...nothing is compatible to wash with yellows! Yellow will dull white, and all other colors will dull yellow.

I have a few yellow shirts and I only wear them rarely. When I do, it stays dirty for a loooong time because I won't wash one shirt alone.

So: no more yellow clothes for me.

 

[Upisoft]

You can make an exception and do it by hand (if you love yellow that much)

 

[BobG]

I throw everything in one load and hope for the best. And hope the load finishes both washing and drying before anyone knocks on my door, since I only buy one outfit at a time.

 

[rootX]

I don't know what colors my clothes have .. so it has never been a worry for me. I don't think I have anything white.

 

[Proton Soup]

there is white, and there is everything else. .

 

[Evo]

Get some Shout color catcher sheets.

Beige and yellow work together, luckily I have both.

 

[turbo]

Just pitch them all into the washer, and transfer them all into the dryer when done. I can't be picky about clothes that aren't color-fast. Of course, I used to boil Rit dye and tie-dye lots of my casual clothes in the 60's. You could make those dyes pretty color-fast with a salt treatment...or not.

 

[FrancisZ]

I tried to make a mnemonic device of sorts for myself...

The 3 C's: Colored Cotton Cold.

The 3 W's: Wash Whites Warm. Or: WOOL WON'T WORK (gotta let those soak and and air dry). I hate going to the cleaners over a sweater vest.

I like to use Dark Woolite on all of my colors. Bleach is too hard on the whites, so I just use any detergent on them.

 

[FrancisZ]

...tie-dye lots of my casual clothes in the 60's. You could make those dyes pretty color-fast with a salt treatment...or not.

I love you old hippie. I really do. But I'm still not ditching my sweater vests and ties.


My mother and father used to do that too. They made me help them once, as a kid.

 

[russ_watters]

I throw everything in one load and hope for the best. And hope the load finishes both washing and drying before anyone knocks on my door, since I only buy one outfit at a time.

I wash white and not white separately, but that's it.

 

[FrancisZ]

As my grandmother taught me: you can actually get away with washing everything (color and white) all at once. The thing is that the colors have to already have gone through the laundry a few times.

At any rate, if you do that (hopefully only out of desperation) MUST BE COLD WATER.

 

[lisab]

Get some Shout color catcher sheets.

Beige and yellow work together, luckily I have both.

Aaah, maybe that would work...I usually wash khakis with the browns, but if I re-classify them as beiges they might work with the yellows...thanks !

And yes, I totally expected many, many posts saying 'I just mix 'em all together' . After all, I think the age distribution of PF skews toward college age.

 

[lisab]

As my grandmother taught me: you can actually get away with washing everything (color and white) all at once. The thing is that the colors have to already have gone through the laundry a few times.

At any rate, if you do that (hopefully only out of desperation) MUST BE COLD WATER.

When I use cold/cold water, I sometimes find a slight residue that looks a bit like foam on the clothes, and have to rinse them again.

 

[turbo]

I love you old hippie. I really do. But I'm still not ditching my sweater vests and ties.

My mother and father used to do that too. They made me help them once, as a kid.

My wife and our neighbor's daughter conspired to buy some tie-dye kits at Wal-Mart or some such, and they were having so much fun with the process that when they started running low on shirts and dyes, my wife made another run (30 miles round-trip) to buy more, so they could keep dying. The granddaughters (5 and 7) had a blast, and want to wear the tie-dyed shirts VERY frequently. My wife gets comments from co-workers, too, because she wears them to work. When you're a mill-worker and you like to cook, you are inevitably going to stain shirts. Who's going to notice a tomato-sauce stain or a small oil stain in the jumble of a bright, carnival tie-dye? Now a throw-away or gardening shirt can be a fun shirt to wear to work.

 

[turbo]

And yes, I totally expected many, many posts saying 'I just mix 'em all together' . After all, I think the age distribution of PF skews toward college age.

Thank you. I am pushing 60, and I am a dedicated "mixer". No sorting for me. Laundry is laundry.

 

[lisab]

I love you old hippie. I really do. But I'm still not ditching my sweater vests and ties.

Turbo in his 60's tie-dyes, Francis in his sweater vests and ties...PF's "Odd Couple"?

 

[Dembadon]

My wife and I trade laundry weeks. She washes all non-whites together, and all whites together, all in cold/cold water. I read the tags and make piles accordingly while checking all pockets. Yes, it takes me a long time to do laundry, but I've never ruined a single article of clothing.

Yellow is definitely a troublesome color, as the "Wash with like colors" directive is too subjective, unless the shade of yellow is extremely light/dark.

 

[turbo]

Turbo in his 60's tie-dyes, Francis in his sweater vests and ties...PF's "Odd Couple"?

I don't have any tie-dyes, currently. My wife wanted to do this with the kids, so they have all the tie-dyes. I have an excess of biker T-shirts though that will (sadly) get consigned to the rag/tie up the tomatoes pile as they wear out. I can't attend outings with large crowds anymore (perfume chemical issues) and gave up riding a few years ago. It kinda sucks. I had been wrenching and modding Harleys for well over 20 years. Cold Turkey was a drag.

 

[FrancisZ]

My wife and our neighbor's daughter conspired to buy some tie-dye kits at Wal-Mart or some such, and they were having so much fun with the process that when they started running low on shirts and dyes, my wife made another run (30 miles round-trip) to buy more, so they could keep dying. The granddaughters (5 and 7) had a blast, and want to wear the tie-dyed shirts VERY frequently. My wife gets comments from co-workers, too, because she wears them to work. When you're a mill-worker and you like to cook, you are inevitably going to stain shirts. Who's going to notice a tomato-sauce stain or a small oil stain in the jumble of a bright, carnival tie-dye? Now a throw-away or gardening shirt can be a fun shirt to wear to work.

I used to have them (again because of my parents) until I was about 8 or 9. It was just part of my summer garb really (I'll find a picture somewhere). No one ever really said anything to me years ago; but I'll bet they'd be surprised today.

Turbo in his 60's tie-dyes, Francis in his sweater vests and ties...PF's "Odd Couple"?

Eh, I guess that's just from living with my grandparents for so many years. They raised us really. I miss my tie-dye though sometimes (it was a very soft cotton shirt). It wasn't exactly rainbow-y either; more of a yellow, green, blue.

 

[mugaliens]

For me it's easy, as I have just two colors: Whites and darks. Oh, and the occasional red sweats and sweater, but that's a once a month thing.

 

[Upisoft]

I wash white and not white separately, but that's it.

That's how one of my favorite yellow shirts became fluorescent green.

 

[Monique]

I don't sort color, but I've got a number of different loads: wool 20ºC, delicates 30ºC, regular clothes 40ºC, denim 40ºC, towels 60ºC and bedding 60ºC. Once in a while an empty load at 90ºC, to clean the machine. It keeps me busy

 

[Vanadium 50]

My machine recommends 90º C for cotton. I'm afraid to even try it!

(Maybe that's the temperature to turn cotton fabric back into plain old cotton)

 

[lisab]

My machine recommends 90º C for cotton. I'm afraid to even try it!

(Maybe that's the temperature to turn cotton fabric back into plain old cotton)

Whoa, that's really hot!

I don't think my machine has a water heater...I think it just uses the hot water as it comes out of the tap, which I think is about 55C. Like Monique, I only use that for towels and bedding So I couldn't get to 90C even if I wanted to.

 

[Cfire]

I was brought up with the standard, "white clothes together with hot water, colored clothes together with warm/cold water."

When I go to college, I realized that I could throw all my clothes in together, save time, and have nothing lose color or mess up anything else.

My white undershirts are still very white, and my red t-shirts are still very red.

Anyone else just throw it all in? We live on the new wave of clothing technology! It's profound.

(maybe I can get away with this because all my clothes are jeans/khaki shorts/t-shirts/undershirts/various long sleeved and short sleeved shirts, with no really fancy stuff, though a lot of my stuff is not cheap)

 

[Redbelly98]

I wash white and not white separately, but that's it.

That's my Plan A. Then if I want to balance the size of the two loads, I'm willing to add light colors or faded color garments to the white pile.

And cold water, always, even the whites.

 

[Hurkyl]

I have a few yellow shirts and I only wear them rarely. When I do, it stays dirty for a loooong time because I won't wash one shirt alone.

So: no more yellow clothes for me.

Or... more yellow clothes! And wear all yellow for one week so they all dirty at the same time.

 

[DaveC426913]

Whites in hot.
Reds and purples together in cold.
Blues, greens together in cold.
Yellows with lights and beiges in cold.
All darks together in cold.

 

[hypatia]

Every thing in cold. New clothes and under garments separately, until they become old. Then they can all be dumped in the wash together.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Long underwear - cold
Underwear - hot