Is separating laundry colours dated practice?

Be careful with colour catchers!! And dryer sheets if you have a combo washer dryer. They can get sucked into the pipes and cause a blockage. My washer-dryer was flashing all the lights and wouldn’t work and I called out the people to fix it as I have an insurance plan. He found the culprit was a colour catcher type sheet. He said they’re a nightmare and are often the case of blockages. It had sucked its way into where you often find a coin/earring.

I have worked in laundries, always separated!

I have also worked in a small shop and when the kids pile out of school in their uniform I could easily tell who's parents separated the wash and who didn't. Fifty shades of grey!

I work for a commercial laundry company so have some knowledge in this area!

we would always separate by lights and darks even though we wash at low temperatures. The only time we don’t do this is if something is in a “fouled” bag where it goes in the wash in the bag (which disintegrates in the wash). This would be for things like hospital scrubs or bedding which may have bodily fluids on it.

sometimes we have still had colours run and then we have to compensate the customer.

I do
-whites (just school shirts and sheets) once a week
-darks (which is the vast majority of our washing) several times a week
-light colours once a week

I separate strong colours, whites and darks but the rest go in together.

I do. My mum doesn’t and she put a pink dress in with grey and lightly coloured stuff (not whites) and nearly everything got dyed pink!

These days I go by the material, degree of dirt, then the colour. Also, you can often see from the new garment if it is going to bleed in the wash.

Yes I'm the same!! 😊

I use non bio on all the darks and whiteners and bio on the lights / whites and use a colour. Catcher in every wash I separate all my washing I am a bit obsessive tbh

I bung it all in together. Every now and then we do a bleachy wash of our white shower curtain and chuck in the few white items we have (mostly school socks) and that gets rid of the grey and makes them bright white again

It’s not madness to them though, or me for that matter.

I do blacks, blue/greens, pinks, whites, and sometimes greys. Towels. Sheets and tea towels together. I use colour catchers with the pinks and they always come out pink, so dye is definitely leaking out but I don't know what from.

Whites and I add some vanish white to stop them greying, then light colours (have a toddler DD so lots of light pinks, light blues, yellows etc), dark wash, towel wash and a bedding wash we do here.

I only do about one wash a week (big machine and just me). I chuck everything in at once and, I agree with PP, no disasters like there used to be.

I wash towels and bedding together weekly.

Then 2 lots of washing during the week - 1 is for more soiled items such as undies etc or stained clothes and the other one is a light fast wash for the remaining.

I dont separate colours etc and use colour catchers instead.

Whites, then I do a darks one (mainly jeans and school uniforms) and then a colours one (I have a daughters so a LOT of pink - their choice not mine BTW) and then towels and then bedding

I have no whites but everything goes on together on a coolish cycle with a colour catcher

I separate. Whites go grey if you put them in with darks, it's definitely noticeable.

I’ve definitely had things run recently. And when the odd white sock or pair of knickers ends up in the main wash it’s often noticeable when pairs back up with its white partner.

I do a white wash (which also includes yellow as we have a lot of that in our house too). I then separate the kids washing from the whites into just 2 mixed lads. Mostly dark things to be fair. I then do my own clothes on a mixed wash other than anything white. 5£3’ towels are done themselves. Then period knickers and pads are all done separate - they go on a rinse first then a wash, do sometimes chuck in some towels after the rinse if there are odd ones hanging about. Bedding them gets done in sets as they come off the bed - unless they’ve used white sheets with darker cover then they get separated/added to the white load of done on the same day. Towels and period things don’t use conditioners b it everything else does. With the whites I usually pop in the oxi white/gold powder.

Same !

I got a brand new BRIGHT yellow t-shirt over the summer from an event. It's wasn't wild about quite how traffic-supervisor it looked, so I chucked it through with my mixed darks (navy, black t-shirts & hoodies etc).

It had the desired effect & came out a much muddier sort of shade - far more likely to wear it now!

I do whites , lights , coloureds , darks , delicates , woollens all separately.
I also do towels separately because I wash them on a hotter wash temperature

I was everything together and it's fine. Only exception is if I have something new that is coloured or dark, then I make sure I don't wash anything white at the same time, just in case the colours run.

Me too. And bedding and towels are all at least 60 degrees, unpopular but makes me feel better

I’ve been wondering this too OP, so every now and then, if I have something new and dark, I’ll throw in a white cloth or something that doesn’t matter, to see what happens. I reckon it’s 50-50 whether it picks up the colour or not.