Does anyone not separate laundry by colour?

[Sodthatforagameofsoldiers]

I'm drowning in laundry. It takes fecking hours if my life every week to do laundry for 5 people, wash, dry, separate into piles, put away and start again. We are not mad bed changers or towel users but have 3 small kids and they make a lot of mess.

Anyway I'm considering a laundry system where each person has a basket of their own clothes which is washed once a week. Everything dirty is collected in the basket over the week, washed, dried and put away. No sorting, no piles of clean washing everywhere. The only thing is I'd probably not separate by colour, if just shove it all in.

Will this work?

And yeah sorry I know it's a contender for world's dullest thread...

i do everything together unless I end up with 2 loads at the same time, then I will make the effort to do light and dark. No one wears white shirts now tho, no uniforms.
I did have to make sure DD knew when she left home that that is NOT the norm and using her furnished flats ancient washing machine that only does a 2 hour program that she should be more careful.
I have a new washer and it is a dream - a 28 min wash, can do cold, 20 30 up to 60 and spins from 0 to 1400 - still just 28 mins.
No one gets dirty dirty - it's just a refresh really now theres no grotty kids

I dont wear white clothes so everything goes on together.

I don't think I have ever washed anything separately, with the exception: (a) dc's white school shirts, they have their own special wash once a week, and (b) new bright stuff, like a bright red or purple duvet set. I'd wash that the first couple times on its own. Dh does his own washing, but given its infrequency, I can't imagine he does anything special either!

I don't have a lot of light stuff - mainly colours. I deliberately don't buy white clothes and anything striped, I treat as a colour. I wash in 20/30 degrees so that seems to reduce fading.

Sheets, which are mainly white, get their own wash once a week.

I wash whites, lights. dark and reds separately
I throw in 1/2 cup of bicarb in the drum and white vinegar in the conditioner drawer for whites and it stops the whites from turning into 'urban white'. works wonders on white bedding and gets rid of the yellowing.

I do one fortnightly ‘proper white’ wash (DH’s white shirts, white towels and white bed sheets) on hot.

Everything else is either a ‘super stained’ was (mixed colours on hot - usually baby clothes or nursery gear with a colour catcher) or a ‘bog standard’ wash (everything else on cool with a colour catchers). I found colour catchers saved us money in the longer term a few years ago when it was just DH and I as it saved us putting on half loads.

Never bothered with separating - well not for 40 years or so. Life's too short.

Nope, never separated them. No catastrophes yet.

I do white, towels, bedding and other.

The only whites are school uniform shirts and I bought 5 so it's a once a week job.

it’s a survival of the fittest laundry system in this house.

Same. We do separate out whites tbf, and if we have more than a load, we chuck lights and darks. I'll pluck more fragile items out before the tumble drier.

I have no desire to be a competent laundress though. It takes the minimum amount of time and effort I can give it whilst processing the task.

I've never seperated laundry in my life, and neither have my parents which is how I learned to do it this way. And all my stuff looks great and so does theirs.

Only exception would be if I have one item that I know is going to run, like a red skirt bought from a dodgy hippy market stall or something.

It doesn't even make sense, where would you put a blue and white striped shirt for example.

Whites/lights
Hot wash (towels, bedding)
Delicates on cold "hand-wash" setting" occasionally
Everything else together.

I don't separate at all. If we buy new clothes, I'd wash it before wearing. And never seen the colour run in the water. I never had any clothes turn pink or grey all these years. Besides, we are only family of 3, so if we separate, I will be wasting too much water and energy.

I don't separate anything. It all gets chucked in at 40C.

The only time I do a special dark load is when I'm washing new dark jeans the first couple of times.

I don't think DS13 cares how bright his whites are tbh. I don't have many white things - maybe some underwear, but I don't care about that.

I've got a laundry bag that has 3 sections - one for colours, one for darks and one for whites.

www.argos.co.uk/product/3426832

Whenever a section is full, it gets washed. Occasionally I will chuck the colours and darks together with a colour catcher.

I should add that the whites section never gets full - but I still wash them separately. Otherwise they do go dull.

I separate out:

Whites
Bedding, towels, underwear
Everything else

I also don't iron. And only out clothes away for me and my 7yr old, DH and 11yr old can out their own away.

When the kids were younger I did this by never buying anything white. Now eldest has started school with white polo's I'm forced to separate.

Currently system is 3 laundry baskets, whites, thing I need soon (eg. Rest of uniform), and things to wash whenever. I also bought two weeks worth of polo's so I can do a full white load every fortnight insted of half load every week.

We are family of five. One basket for all. One load of darks as soon as I get up the wash goes on then it's pegged out or tumbled before I leave the house in the morning. Next day is whites The system works well for us

I am a terrible slattern, but honestly, separating out your whites is worth doing. They will grey otherwise. everything else is bunged in randomly.

We do lights and darks. There's two laundry bins in main bathroom and one in each bedroom (not mine as I get changed in the bathroom). I don't see how you can just do it by each person - can't imagine my kid's rugby kit getting thrown in with his school shirts (at the time, no school now).

I wash whites separately but everything else goes in together.
But we don't have many white clothes so I probably only do a white wash every 2 weeks.

I tend to do a load every day.

Mondays I always do towels and Fridays I do bedding.

We have an Ikea Kallax unit on the landing with 4 fabric boxes in it. White one for whites, pale one for lights, bright one for bright colours, black one for dark stuff. If it gets sorted into the box, it will get washed. Otherwise, you're on your own. R

My dc red school sweatshirts go in with their white polos, not a problem. I rarely separate and I very,very iron, no one seems to notice! Life is too short!