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...

Three categories here - whites, lights and darks.
Towels are separate. I often leave whites to wash with sheets otherwise it's only one or two items. Darks get washed most days - DH's work clothes, etc. Lights every few days. Works for us.

So rude!

This is what we do!

You are so rude!

4 people here. We have a basket which has two sections, one for lights, one for darks, darks go on with a colour catcher.

Some people lack any empathy or imagination.

I imagine the OP has a life which is why she wants to make the mundane life essentials much easier and quicker.

I do whites, mixed colours and darks. Seems to work well, I did find mixing it all meant some clothes would become grey or pink or just look crap. Never tried a colour catcher myself.

Yep I bung everything in except if its a red or new denim that may run. Throw some white vinegar in with it mostly for my baby's weaning bibs but keeps whites bright too

I do whites, colours and darks because I don't want my kids bright clothes to get dark or my husbands shirts to get grey. It takes a while but I get on with it, also have one of the big laundry hampers with 3 sections which makes life easier!

I don’t. Never had a problem.

I never used to but had so many white things that ended up looking slightly grey that I now separate whites from the rest.

Can you get your kids to do the sorting....?

I don’t separate. I also don’t buy whites as kids are still wee and ruin white things anyway. Only thing is the school polo shirts do go a bit grey but I don’t really give a shit about that!!

Crazy, crazy talk.

DO NOT WASH UNDERWEAR WITH ANYTHING ELSE

Underwear is highly hazardous and must be boiled separately in disinfectant. This is well known by the nice ladies of Mumsnet. If you put someone's knickers in with their T-shirts they will get bubonic arse disease and be dead by the weekend

As I live alone it would take ages for me to get a pile of whites, darks or whatever and Colour Catcher sheets are very useful to stop awful colour accidents. Laundry is a thankless task at the best of times like most housework - you only really notice it when it's not done.

Only time I go out of my way to wash things separately is if they're new and look as if they might run a little bit. I wash those items by hand, so that I can see what I'm dealing with. Most things stop running after a few washes, and then they can be bunged in with the rest. I rarely have enough white things to make a full separate wash worthwhile. Only the occasional white shirt, which again could be washed by hand if necessary.

I just do it all as a load on 40 degrees. Lights darks etc in together, whit school shirts with black school trousers. Occasionally I do a white wash. Higher temp for towels, bedding. Nothing comes out grey or Discoloured.

I do separate and I also have a wash for delicate tops I wear for work.

i found that sticking to two or three colours is the best, I do a white, red and dark wash and then underwear and bedding separately.

when DD was at nursery I just put her things all together in the wash and had other clothes for at home which weren’t covered in paint and glue and what else all the time.

Ok thanks - I have bought some colour catchers to revolutionise my life 😀

The bubonic arse disease is a real problem in this house given the literal shit the kids cover their clothes in, but hey ho, we all gotta go somehow!

I don't do white washes. In my 30s I deliberately stopped buying white clothes.

If there are white children clothes to wash my DP has to do it with his shirts. 😀

Oh and when each of your children become 12 give them a separate laundry basket for their clothes, show them how to do a wash when it is full and work out a day in the week when they can do it.

In my extended family most of the men and all the teens/young adults do their own washing.

So my children share a bedroom and they have their own wash basket in there.
My husband has his basket on his side of the bed and I have one on mine.
My wash routine usually goes
Monday : My clothes then a swim wear wash later
Tuesday: Husbands clothes
Wednesday : Bedding and dog bedding (not together!)
Thursday: Towels
Friday: Kids clothes.
Saturday: Whoever’s basket looks fullest.

I use a colour catcher with anything I think will run. No sorting between people because that’s already done. I very rarely iron either.

We (I say we because it isn't me) do whites, light pinks, greys, blues, reds and dark pinks together and anything really precious alone. Male underwear goes all together, mine goes in the above list

Sorry, everything separate apart from mens underwear and reds and pinks. Anything important goes in alone or is dry cleaned.

It will be fine if you don't have lots of experience or precious white items.

I do what @HeelDig suggests. I have three baskets for whites, lights and darks and whatever is dirty get put in the appropriate basket. When a basket is full I put a wash on. All my towels are light colours and all my bedding is white which means I can still easily do a towel wash and bedding wash - beds get changed all on a certain day, and towels are swapped on a different day. When it's dry I sort it on the dining table into piles for each person and they take it up and put it away. Whoever baths the youngest that night is responsible for putting their clothes away as they're too little to do themselves.

Oh and those laundry sorting baskets never had enough room for a full wash in, so I just bought 3 plastic baskets as then when it's full I can carry it downstairs and load into the machine, use it to hang the wash out and bring it in etc!