Should undies and tea cloths be washed together?

[PeridotCricket]

I think not, DH, normally very particular...just chucks them all in together as a whites wash on 40.

Dettol laundry cleanser! It claims to kill 99.9% of germs.

I use dettol laundry at 40 degrees on any towels and tea towels.
Also use on underwear and pyjama bottoms, seperated by adults/ children
Socks and trousers get dettol too.

I’m weird about laundry I know, but who can be bothered to iron tea towels?! or anything else

Do people dry the their hands and faces on different towels to the one they dry their body on 🤔

Hello, I am on MN aren't I? You've all forgiven the answer to this - a slug of Zoflora. I do this on my teen's school shirts, sports gear, dishcloths, towels etc but the all go in with other stuff.

Shocked that people are so worried about- we’ll not sure what they are worried about really. ‘Shit soup’ . I’m guessing that tea towels are far more minging than pants anyway.
In our house tea towels and napkins get chucked straight in to the machine at the end of everyday. Then whatever load of washing I’m doing gets put in on top of them.
The only thing I wash separately is towels (hot wash) and bedding (hot wash). Everything else done at 40.

I wash everything at 30.

Towels and bedding generally go on a separate wash but if I haven’t got enough they go in with the normal wash.

And I really only separate them because I tumble dry bedding and towels and I don’t tumble clothes.

LOL which are you afraid of contaminating which?

Nethers germs on your teacups? Tea germs on your nethers? Are you not worried about toe-cheese from your socks getting into your knickers when you wash your undies together?

Laundering does not kill germs, anyway. It physically removes them and sends them down the drain. Which (consumer org) has shown that domestic machines often do not even reach 60C, and those that do don't stay at that temp for long enough to kill germs.

If items are covered in blood/vomit/poo/mud I might give them a separate rinse first, but otherwise they just go in a 40C wash together. We seem to survive.

Washing something at low temperature that has been on your bum with something that you use to dry your dishes with is a good way to transfer pathogens from your bum to your mouth

I reckon the tea towels are more germ ridden than my towels which are used to dry nice clean skin, I don’t floss my shitty arse after D&V with a bath towel!

I thought everyone washed everything at 30 degrees after the adverts told us to for years.

I have never separated any of my laundry. Everything goes in all together, no matter its colour or what it is - underwear, work clothes, cycling clothes, towels, bedding etc, all goes in together.

I only wash delicates on 30.

General clothes 40, towels and bedding 60.
Tea towels and cloths either 60 or a 90 if I’m doing one every month.

Towels/tea-towels (and nothing else, whatever) at 60. Used to be 90, but we're trying to reduce energy consumption.
All lower-deck undies at 40, along with bed-linen (supposed to kill off dust-mites etc.).
Everything else at 30, grouped white/light or dark.

Erm... I just shove everything in the washing machine and put it on a 40? Sometimes a 60 if they are really filthy.

It’s on threads like these that I realise I may have a slightly unhealthy level of organisation in my laundry habits. I couldn’t ever put tea towels in with clothes I don’t think, it would make my teeth itch. I wash nappies/wipes on their own at 60 with two cold rinses first (or I add a bath towel/mat after the rinsed if the load isn’t big enough with just nappies/wipes). Sometimes dishcloths go in there but only if they’ve been used for the fooor or something. Tea towels/bath towels/ dishcloths go on a separate wash at at least 60 (unless the bath towels are actually unused and just want a quick freshen then they get a super quick wash and a tumble). Whites go together as I have very few and it takes a while to accumulate a load- 40/60. Colours are mostly baby clothes so they all go together on 30 with separate cold rinses to remove stains. Darks make up the bulk of our clothing so they get their own 30/40 washes and I tend to separate them into: DH clothes (farmer so mucky) 40, underwear 40, mine/DDs clothes 30. We have a separate washer for farm overalls which get washed on 60/90. We seem to generate a monumental volume of dirty clothes despite the fact that I wear the same clothes for a week few days

I put tea towels in with my normal wash. It wouldn't occur to me not to.

We wash bedding, towels, etc at a fairly hot setting to eliminate bacteria and allergens. Clothes are washed as hot as they can without being ruined, mostly for allergens.

No way. Underwear should be washed separately and certainly not with tea towels!

Just sorted by colour here (whites, lights and darks) on a coolish wash unless anyone has a tummy bug, in which case I wash anything potentially contaminated in a separate hot wash.

The only thing that gets separated in my house is dog stuff. Other than that items will either go on a hot regular wash or a cold /warm delicate wash. Colours not separated unless it something new like jeans which run at first.

I’m a research scientist and faff about with viruses and bacteria for a living.

I bung everything in together at 30 or 40 degrees. That’s not hot enough to kill most bacteria, but the process of washing with detergent mechanically removes the vast majority of bacteria, and takes away any food/dirt etc that they could be living on. There’s no benefit (or point) trying for total sterility in the home, it’s both impossible and totally unnecessary. Clean, dry material is not going to harbour anything dangerous.

The only time I do a hot wash, or separate anything out for hygiene reasons is if someone has been ill - and even then it probably doesn’t make much difference.

What are people doing with their tea towels that makes them so dirty that they can't go in the same wash as the rest of their clothes? We have a tea towel and a hand towel out - one is for drying the occasional cup or teaspoon or whatever after it's been washed and the other is for drying hands after they've been washed. How are they getting so germ-ridden?!

We use cloths for wiping surfaces after the crumbs have been swept away and sprayed with a surface spray of some sort, so again I don't see how they're getting so filthy. We wash up with scouring sponges that get chucked away after a few weeks uses.

I can kind of understand the angst with pants etc that have been next to someone's bum but, as scientists on here have said, the germs and the poo crumbs have been washed away and gone down the drain.

I wonder how big some people's energy bills are if they regularly wash at 60-90°C.

Interesting thread. I started off reading it completely horrified at the thought of washing dish towels with pants.
Dh and me have always segregated the laundry. Bath mats and bath towels can be washed together with clothes but dish towels are on their always on their own.
I'm now realising how silly this is. I'm off to wash my dishtowels and vileda mop head together on a 90c wash though
Dh has actually asked me not to wash the mop heads in the machine ever. I'm not sure how he thinks I actually clean them.

I think what people are worrying about is transfer of homeopathic bum germs from pants/nappies to tea towels in the washing machine, while they all swish around together in shit soup. And then from the tea towels to cutlery and crockery when used to dry up.

Of course, believing in this process ignores the point of washing machines being to clean stuff, with the use of detergent, which removes dirt etc, and water, which rinses it all away.

And if it didn't, the washing machine would still be dirty after being used to wash pants/nappies, so unless you replace your washing machine after it has been used to wash pants/nappies, your argument about not washing pants/nappies and tea towels in the same wash is invalid.

I don't wash undies with tea towels. Undies go in with clothes, dishcloths/tea towels go in with hand towels, bath towels only with bath mats and bedding on it's own. I also use a separate towel for my hair and face in case dh has given his bum a proper good dry with the bath towel. I realise I overthink things.

I used to bung everything in together on 40c, until I read a Daily Mail article about bacteria in washing and got freaked (yes I know..... . So now I do all towels, bedding and tea towels on 60c, and also wash them more often, never used 90c. Have noticed tea towels are cleaner though.... having said that we were fine for 30 odd years so shouldn't really have worried me, but....Interested how people do underwear at 60c, surely they disintegrate, doesn't the lace pucker up???